Stimpunks Foundation
for the meeting where a young person is being called defiant
Broadside · Open edition
Side A of B
Monotropism
A theory of Autism developed by Autistic people. In a monotropic mind, fewer interests are active at any one time, and each one takes a larger share of a limited pool of attention. Attention behaves like a tunnel. Inside it, focus is deep and detail is vivid. Outside it, things get missed.
Fewer things at once,
more attention on each.
moving the tunnel costs energy · being moved constantly costs everything
1
Coping with multiple channels is hard
Sensory channels, or any other stream of information. A conversation runs words, tone, gesture and eye contact at once. Missing one is ordinary, not rude.
2
Filtering is tricky and error-prone
Sometimes nothing can be tuned out. Other times something is filtered out completely. Filtering is active work, and it gets worse when a person is worn out.
3
Changing tracks is destabilising
Task-switching is hard, and new plans take work. Starting, changing direction and stopping all cost energy. Warnings, time and recovery are the accommodation.
4
Things are experienced intensely
Usually things that relate to concerns and interests. Deep focus makes detail vivid, which runs both ways — more pleasure, more pain. Intensity is not overreaction.
5
Attention loops back to interests and concerns
It is hard to let things drop. Unresolved questions keep returning. Asking again is not manipulation — the question has not settled.
6
What drops out of awareness stays dropped
Reminders and visual aids help. Asking a hundred times does not work if it never registered. A dropped task is not indifference. It is outside the tunnel.
“In a nutshell, monotropism is the tendency for our interests to pull us in more strongly than most people. … fewer interests tend to be aroused at any time, and they attract more of our processing resources, making it harder to deal with things outside of our current attention tunnel.”
Fergus Murray · the theory formulated by Dinah Murray, Mike Lesser and Wenn Lawson, 2005
Stimpunks Foundation
what to change, and what to ask for
Broadside · Open edition
Side B of B
At home
- A safe space to rest and regulate, and to be in their own interests. Not earned, not withdrawn as a consequence.
- Flexible routines rather than timetables. Fewer events in a day means fewer transitions to survive.
- Cushion time around events, so a change of plan has somewhere to go.
- Visual reminders and checklists for the things that slip out of the tunnel.
- Low demand after school. There is often nothing left by then.
At school
- Consistent staff, and preparation before any change of room, teacher or timetable.
- Flexibility and recharge time — and break time is often not rest.
- Sensory tools chosen by the student: ear defenders, fidgets, movement.
- Interests woven into the learning, with room for self-directed work.
- Timers and visual prompts, kept few enough to stay usable.
Instead of → consider
obsessions→ passions
stuck on one activity→ flow state and inertia
disengaged, not listening→ juggling attention resources
repetitive behaviours→ stimming to help regulate
Ask in the room
- how many transitions does this day ask for, and which can go?
- what notice do they get before a change, and who gives it?
- where do they recover afterwards, and is it actually available?
- is their interest built into the day, or held back as a reward?
- where we wrote “refused”, could we write “was in another tunnel”?
“The more a brain concentrates its resources in a few interests and concerns, the more we should expect these to be true.”
Fergus Murray · Starting Points for Understanding Autism · 2019
Adapted from An Introduction to the Theory of Monotropism To Support Autistic Young People by Fergus Murray and Helen Edgar (2026, Autistic Realms), at their request. The six starting points are taken from ‘Starting Points for Understanding Autism’, written by Fergus Murray, January 2019 — found on their Medium page, and republished by Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. The underlying theory was formulated by Dinah Murray, Mike Lesser and Wenn Lawson: ‘Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism’, Autism 9(2), 2005. The Monotropism Questionnaire (Garau et al., 2023) found Autistic and ADHD people more likely to be monotropic — it is a reflective instrument, not an autism assessment. Full detail, with every source, on the Why Sheet.