Monotropism: The Attention Theory of Autism

Monotropism was first presented to an autism conference in 1992, yet the first systematic attempt to measure it did not appear until 2023. The idea has spread far faster than the evidence behind it.

Most explanations of autism begin with what autistic people supposedly lack: social understanding, flexibility, a sense of the bigger picture. Monotropism begins somewhere else. It asks where attention goes, how much of it there is, and what happens to everything that attention is not currently pointed at. If you are exploring the wider picture of neurodivergence, it is one of the few ideas that came from inside the autistic community rather than being applied to it from outside.

That origin is why the word has travelled so far. A questionnaire built on the theory went viral on TikTok in 2023, and many commenters said its statements felt clearer and more relatable than the autism tests they had taken (Murray, 2023). Our guide to hyperfixation and special interests gives the idea a short section. This page takes it apart properly.

It covers what the theory claims, where it came from, what it feels like according to autistic people themselves, what the research does and does not show, and how it sits alongside ADHD and rival theories of autism. There is also a free quiz, with a clear explanation of what a quiz like this can and cannot tell you. This article is about understanding, not diagnosis or clinical advice.

What Is Monotropism?

Monotropism is a theory that autistic people tend to direct their attention to a small number of interests at any one time, with those interests held very intensely and little attention left over for anything else. Murray, Lesser and Lawson (2005) argue that this is central to autism, and that much of what clinicians describe as autistic behaviour flows from it.

The theory rests on two assumptions. The first is that attention is limited: at any given moment a person only has so much of it, and mental processes compete for the supply. The second is that people differ in how they share that supply out. Murray and colleagues describe this using light, with diffuse lighting at one end and a torch beam at the other.

A monotropic person has few interests active at once, each one strongly aroused. A polytropic person has many active at once, each at a lower level. The authors use “interest” in a broader sense than a hobby. For them, an aroused interest is one “charged with feeling”, and a task only really gets done when it has become an interest of this kind (Murray et al., 2005). Boring paperwork is hard for a monotropic person not because the skill is missing, but because nothing is pulling attention towards it.

Monotropism vs polytropism

Monotropism and polytropism differ mainly in how many interests are active at once and how intensely each one is held. Neither is presented as the correct setting. The table sets out the contrast as the original theory describes it.

What is an attention tunnel?

An attention tunnel is the state of being absorbed in one interest, with heightened awareness inside it and much less awareness outside. The term dates back to Dinah Murray’s first talk on the subject, Attention Tunnelling and Autism (Murray, 1992). The 2005 paper links the tunnel to the uneven sensory reports many autistic people give: intense experience of what is in focus, and very little awareness of what is not, without any general preference for detail.

This offers a way into a puzzle that many families recognise. The same person can miss their own name being called from across the room yet notice a tiny change in the thing they are studying. On this account, those are not two contradictory traits. They are one attention pattern seen from either side of the tunnel wall.

Where Did Monotropism Come From?

Monotropism came from Dinah Murray, a British researcher and autism support worker, who first presented it at the Durham autism conference in 1992. According to the history written by her son Fergus Murray and Wenn Lawson, she had completed a PhD in psycholinguistics on language and interests in 1985, then began to wonder around 1990 whether her ideas about interests could explain autism. A friend coined the word from Greek roots meaning a single way or direction (Murray & Lawson, 2022).

Wenn Lawson, an autistic academic in Australia who was diagnosed in 1994, had been developing closely similar ideas about single-focused attention. The two met at a conference in 1998 and began working together. With Mike Lesser, a collaborator of Murray’s, they published the paper that everyone now cites in the journal Autism in 2005 (Murray & Lawson, 2022; Murray et al., 2005).

Two things about that paper are easy to miss. First, it is not a study. The authors say plainly that they are not establishing new facts, but reinterpreting what was already known and drawing on first-hand accounts, including Lawson’s own. Second, its uptake was slow. Fergus Murray’s (2018) article in The Psychologist suggested that may have had more to do with who wrote it than with what it said, and the National Autistic Society now has its own explainer on the theory (Edgar & Adkin, 2025).

How Does Monotropism Explain Autistic Traits?

Monotropism explains autistic traits by treating them as consequences of one attention pattern rather than as separate deficits. Murray et al. (2005) worked through the diagnostic criteria then in use, DSM-IV and ICD-10, and argued that the first two groups of traits follow from the third, the restricted range of interests. Today’s DSM-5 still lists highly restricted interests that are unusual in intensity or focus (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Here is the argument in outline.

Social interaction

Social interaction, on this account, is hard because it asks for broad attention at speed. A conversation involves words, tone, faces, timing and the history between two people, all arriving at once and all shifting. The 2005 paper points to studies where autistic participants could manage theory of mind tasks once they understood them. It suggests the difficulty appears in real life, where the demands are too great to integrate at the pace required. That reframes a missing ability as an overloaded resource.

Language and literal thinking

Literal interpretation is explained as what happens when fewer interests are active at once. Metaphor and comparison depend on several ideas being awake together, so that one can colour another. Brosnan and Camilleri (2025) highlight this part of the argument: thinking strategies that depend on many interests being aroused at once are the ones monotropism predicts will be avoided. Grissom et al. (2024) went further and reread 17 studies of verbal fluency, which measures how many words people can produce on a theme. Those studies were usually written up as evidence of deficit, and Grissom and colleagues argue that a monotropic reading fits the wide individual differences better.

Sameness and routine

A need for sameness is explained as protection against the cost of being pulled out of a tunnel. Murray et al. (2005) describe unexpected change as briefly catastrophic for someone in deep focus, because the safe state they were in has gone and nothing else is ready to take over. Seen this way, a person’s distress about a changed plan is not rigidity for its own sake. It is the cost of changing course when there was no alternative already in mind.

Sensory differences

Sensory differences are explained partly by where attention happens to be pointed. Things within focus can be overwhelming, and things outside it may not register at all. Fergus Murray (2018) adds that processing one channel at a time is often easier, so sensory input that cannot be filtered out feels intrusive. Self-report work does find a link here: hyperfocus scores are related to sensory hyperreactivity and to misophonia, a strong reaction to particular sounds (Dwyer et al., 2025), though a link of this kind cannot show which comes first.

What Does Monotropism Feel Like?

Autistic adults describe monotropism as a combination of deep joy and real difficulty, and research interviews suggest those two usually come as a package. The closest direct evidence comes from qualitative studies, where autistic people describe task immersion and being stuck in their own words. These studies cannot show that the theory is true, but they do show that its description of experience rings true for many of the people it describes.

Flow and being yourself

Rapaport et al. (2024a) interviewed 24 autistic adults and found that their accounts of being immersed in a task closely matched descriptions of flow, hyperfocus and monotropism. Participants described immersion as all-encompassing and said it could be hard to balance with the rest of life. Even so, they were glad to have it, because it was a place where they could be themselves with no pretending. Heasman et al. (2024) have since proposed a dedicated theory of autistic flow, built on the same refusal to treat this state as a symptom.

That detail about no pretending deserves attention, because it connects monotropism to masking. If social performance takes constant, divided attention, a stretch of single-minded absorption may be one of the few times a person is not doing it. That connection is a reasonable inference from the interviews rather than something those studies measured directly.

Getting stuck: autistic inertia

Autistic inertia is the difficulty of starting, stopping or changing tasks, and it is the downside most often described alongside monotropism. Participants in Rapaport et al. (2024b) called it one of the most disabling parts of being autistic, while also describing the joy of being completely immersed. A much larger analysis of 501 Reddit posts and 9,955 comments found the same all-or-nothing pattern (Ward et al., 2026). First-hand accounts in Buckle et al. (2021) describe being unable to get moving without some outside prompt. This overlaps with what is usually called executive function, though Fergus Murray (2018) prefers the word inertia because it describes momentum rather than failure.

What is a monotropic split?

A monotropic split is what Tanya Adkin (2022) called the experience of a monotropic mind being forced to divide its attention to meet the demands of a world built for spreading it. Adkin argues that this is what lies behind overwhelm, meltdown, shutdown and burnout. Many people find this a useful way to name something real, and it fits the theory’s logic. It is worth being clear about its status, though: this is a concept from community writing, and its strong causal claims have not been tested. Whether it causes burnout is an open question, which the section on burnout below returns to.

Monotropism Quiz: A Free Self-Reflection on How Your Attention Works

This free monotropism quiz helps you reflect on four parts of attention the theory talks about: how deep your focus goes, how easily you get in and out of it, how you cope with dividing it, and how much you notice while you are focused. It is original to this article, it is short, and it is not a clinical test of any kind.

How to read your result

The most useful part of your result is the pattern across the four areas, not the overall figure. Someone could score high on depth of focus and low on splitting attention, and that tells you something the average hides. The three overall bands are simply equal thirds of this quiz’s own scale. They are not research norms, and nobody has checked how they relate to autism, ADHD or anything else.

Everyone can recognise some of these statements on a bad day. Tiredness, anxiety, low mood and a chaotic week can all make attention feel narrower, so a result reflects how you felt about these statements today. If your answers raise wider questions, our guides to signs of neurodivergence in adults and working out whether you might be neurodivergent are good next steps. Only a qualified clinician can carry out a formal assessment.

Is there an official monotropism test?

The nearest thing to an official monotropism test is the Monotropism Questionnaire, a 47-item self-report measure freely available on the Open Science Framework. Its statements were written with an autistic-led community group, and respondents rate each from 1 to 5 (Garau et al., 2023). Fergus Murray, one of its authors, is clear that it is not an autism assessment, saying it is too early to know whether all autistic people are monotropic or all monotropic people are autistic (Murray, 2023).

The numbers from the validation sample of 1,110 people are often quoted, so it helps to know what is behind them. Autistic participants averaged 4.15 and non-autistic participants 3.19. Those groups were broad: the 756 people in the autistic group included 394 with a clinical diagnosis, 204 who self-identified and 158 who thought they might be autistic. Clinically diagnosed and self-identified people both averaged 4.19, and those who thought they might be autistic averaged 4.01 (Garau et al., 2023).

Several cautions matter if you take it. The paper gives no cut-off score, and test-retest reliability, meaning whether people score the same on a second go, was not assessed. The sample was mainly White and highly educated, and it may have excluded autistic people with intellectual disabilities. It also remains a preprint: we could find no peer-reviewed version as of November 2026, which means it has not been through peer review. Murray (2023) notes that a few people were surprised by low scores and says that deserves further research.

There is one recent step forward. Papińska et al. (2026) published a preliminary Polish adaptation in a journal, testing it with 108 adults referred for ADHD or autism assessment. Internal consistency was high, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.91, and selected subscales were linked to ADHD symptoms and autistic traits. The authors describe this as preliminary and call for larger, more diverse samples.

Monotropism vs Hyperfocus, Hyperfixation and Special Interests

Monotropism is a theory about how attention is organised overall, while hyperfocus, hyperfixation and special interests describe particular things that can happen as a result. They get used interchangeably online, but they are different kinds of idea. Our full comparison of hyperfixation and special interests goes into those two terms in detail.

Researchers have started testing how much these ideas really overlap. Dwyer, Dakakni and colleagues (2025) surveyed 111 autistic and 39 non-autistic adults on monotropism, hyperfocus, flow-prone personality and ADHD inattention traits. Autistic participants reported more monotropism, more hyperfocus and more inattention, which is itself striking, because the same group reported more of what look like opposites. Intense, enjoyable focus seemed to run through several of the measures, but overall there appeared to be many dimensions of autistic attention rather than one. This work is a preprint, so it is an early result.

Definitions cause trouble here too. Dwyer et al. (2025) point out that hyperfocus is sometimes treated as the same thing as flow, yet one common measure counts getting stuck on details as a sign of hyperfocus (Hupfeld et al., 2019), which sounds quite unlike flow. Hyperfocus is also reported in ADHD and schizophrenia (Ashinoff & Abu-Akel, 2021), so finding hyperfocus in an autistic person is not, by itself, evidence for monotropism in particular.

Monotropism and ADHD: Why Do They Seem to Overlap?

Monotropism and ADHD appear to overlap because people with ADHD also score higher than average on the Monotropism Questionnaire, even though the theory began as an account of autism. The two conditions already often come together: one meta-analysis estimated current ADHD in 38.5% of autistic people (Rong et al., 2021). Our comparison of ADHD, autism and dyslexia sets out the wider overlap.

The regression table in Garau et al. (2023) lets you work out what the model predicts for each group. We have done that arithmetic below from the published estimates, rounded to one decimal place. Everything here is self-reported, and the “ADHD” group includes people who only thought they might have it.

Three things stand out. ADHD alone is associated with a clear rise. Autism is associated with a bigger one. Having both adds only slightly to being autistic, so the two effects do not simply stack, a result the authors describe as an interaction. People with no ADHD and no autism average about 3 out of 5, which suggests that many of these statements are recognisable to plenty of people.

Why ADHD should score highly is an open question. On paper ADHD and monotropism sound like opposites, one characterised by distractibility and the other by locked-in focus. Fergus Murray and Sonny Hallett (2023) explore whether the two might share roots, while stressing that much of what they say is speculation. Garau et al. (2023) suggest attention may be captured from inside by interests and also from outside by striking things in the environment, which could help the theory stretch to cover both. This matters for anyone trying to work out which description fits them, but for now no questionnaire can settle it.

Is Monotropism Supported by Research?

Monotropism has some research support, but mostly from questionnaires and interviews, and the small amount of direct experimental work has been mixed. A fair summary is that it describes autistic experience well, while its stronger claims about the cause of autism remain largely untested. Garau et al. (2023) themselves call it an as-yet-untested theory, and its first quantitative measure dates only from their study.

What supports the theory

The strongest support is that autistic people recognise themselves in it. Questionnaire scores separate autistic and non-autistic groups clearly, with only a handful of autistic participants scoring below the non-autistic average (Garau et al., 2023). Interview studies match the theory’s description of experience. Self-report and caregiver-report measures also show more hyperfocus in autistic adolescents (Dwyer et al., 2025). And older work on slow disengagement of attention in young autistic children points the same way (Landry & Bryson, 2004).

What complicates the theory

The laboratory results are where things get harder. In Dwyer et al. (2025), the autistic and comparison groups did not differ on the event-related potentials used to index hyperfocus, which are brain responses measured at the scalp, or on behavioural attention capture. Different types of attention measure were generally unrelated to one another. The group difference on questionnaires was also heavily driven by what caregivers reported, not self-reports. The authors did find lower visual working memory capacity in the autistic group, which might reflect difficulty attending to several targets.

The authors are careful about what this means. With only 40 participants, sample size is their main stated limitation, the sample was poorly representative for gender and intellectual disability, and they suggest that tightly controlled lab tasks with explicit instructions may fail to capture how attention works in daily life. A person told exactly what to do in a quiet room may not show the pattern that appears in a noisy kitchen. So this is not a refutation, but it does mean that the theory has yet to show up reliably in an objective measure.

Other findings pull against a simple picture of narrow attention. Remington et al. (2012) found that autistic adults kept detecting stimuli under a higher perceptual load, when typical adults did not, which they took as evidence of greater perceptual capacity. Dwyer et al. (2025), though, conclude that autistic perceptual capacities are not globally enhanced. Dwyer et al. (2024) also found no overall evidence of sticky attention in young autistic children, and instead described a pattern of returning to familiar things that they called springy attention.

A problem nobody has solved yet: circularity

There is a further problem that popular explainers rarely mention, and this is our reading rather than a published finding. The Monotropism Questionnaire’s factors include rumination and anxiety, need for routines, decision-making and managing social interactions, alongside special interests and focus. Those are recognisably autistic experiences, but they are not all measures of attention. So a strong correlation with autism scales, reported at .78 for the RAADS-14, could partly reflect shared content. A questionnaire can show autistic people recognise these statements without showing that attention is what causes them. Answering that requires evidence of validity from outside self-report, which is exactly where the lab work has struggled.

The theory also makes claims that nobody has tested directly. Murray et al. (2005) propose that attention strategies are normally distributed and largely genetic, with an autism diagnosis picking out people at the far end of the distribution. That is a clear, falsifiable claim, and it is a good sign that the theory could be tested, but there is no direct test of it yet.

How Does Monotropism Compare With Other Theories of Autism?

Monotropism differs from other theories of autism mainly in starting with attention and interest, and in being developed with autistic input. It does not have to replace them all: some of these theories explain different things, and some are compatible with it.

The double empathy problem is the one most often paired with monotropism, and the two fit together neatly. Double empathy is about what happens between people. Crompton et al. (2020) found that autistic people passed a story on to one another as well as non-autistic people did, with the breakdown appearing in mixed groups, which also reported lower rapport. Monotropism is about what happens inside one person’s attention. Brosnan and Camilleri (2025) argue that both point towards support that begins with autistic people’s own goals and interests.

Monotropism in Everyday Life

Monotropism in everyday life mostly shows up wherever attention has to be divided, moved quickly or sustained on something uninteresting. The suggestions in this section come from the 2005 paper and from autistic-led writing. They make sense under the theory but have not generally been tested as interventions, so treat them as ideas to try, not as proven methods.

Monotropism in conversation

In conversation, monotropism can mean being able to listen or to plan a reply, but not both, and losing the thread when several people join in. A first-hand account quoted in the 2005 paper describes realising that whole strands of a conversation had gone past unnoticed, and the embarrassment of that. It can help to talk one to one, to allow pauses, or to say openly that you are still catching up. Conversations about a shared interest may also feel easier, since that interest is already awake.

Monotropism in relationships

In relationships, monotropism can look like not caring when it is really not noticing. A partner absorbed in a project may not hear a question or may forget to reply to a message, and on the receiving end that can feel like rejection. Naming the pattern can take some of the sting out of it. Research on autistic sociality also describes connection being built through doing things together around shared interests (Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, 2019). Our guide to dating when you are neurodivergent covers this further.

Monotropism in the workplace

In the workplace, the theory predicts that open-plan offices, constant notifications and frequent task switching will be especially costly, and that long uninterrupted work will suit people well. The National Autistic Society’s explainer suggests reducing unnecessary sensory input and forced multitasking, and allowing time for transitions (Edgar & Adkin, 2025). Blocks of protected time and advance notice of changes follow naturally from that. See our guide to neurodiversity at work.

Monotropism in children and the classroom

In children and in classrooms, the theory’s main message is to begin with what already holds the child’s attention. Murray et al. (2005) recommend building connections through a child’s own interests, cutting complexity, time pressure and irrelevant stimulation, and making sure tasks feel meaningful. There is some direct support for part of this. Arunachalam et al. (2024) found that focused interests did not disrupt word learning in autistic children, who learned new words with and without them, which counts against the old worry that such interests get in the way. Our guide to neurodivergent children has more for parents and practitioners.

Monotropism and burnout

Monotropism offers one possible explanation for why autistic burnout might build up over time: if dividing attention is costly, a life that requires it all day may run at a deficit. This is a plausible link, and the National Autistic Society’s explainer makes a similar point, but it has not been shown directly. Questions about mental health or exhaustion are best taken to a qualified professional.

Conclusion

Monotropism proposes that autism can be understood through the way attention is shared out: deep on a few things, and thin on everything else. First set out by Dinah Murray, Wenn Lawson and Mike Lesser, and now being tested by a new generation of researchers, it offers a single account of traits that are often treated as separate, and many autistic people recognise themselves in it.

The evidence is still catching up. Questionnaires and interviews are encouraging, the main measure is still a preprint, and lab studies have not yet confirmed the pattern. The fairest way to hold monotropism for now is as a very useful lens for understanding yourself or someone you care about, and as a scientific theory that remains to be tested properly.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is monotropism in simple terms?

In simple terms, monotropism means a mind that does one thing at a time very thoroughly. Think of a spotlight rather than a room light: whatever sits in the beam gets vivid detail, and whatever falls outside it can barely register. The term comes from Greek roots meaning a single way or direction.

Is there a free monotropism test?

Yes. The Monotropism Questionnaire is free on the Open Science Framework, and volunteers have built self-scoring versions online. This page also has a shorter free quiz. None of them is a clinical test, and all are best treated as prompts for thinking about your own attention.

What does a monotropism test score mean?

A monotropism score only tells you how much a set of statements fits your experience. The original paper offers no cut-off, so numbers quoted online as a pass mark did not come from that study. A low score does not mean you are not autistic, and a high score does not mean you are.

Is monotropism the same as ADHD?

Monotropism is not the same as ADHD, although the two seem to overlap. Monotropism began as an account of autism, while ADHD is a separate diagnosis. People reporting ADHD still scored higher on the Monotropism Questionnaire than people reporting neither condition, and researchers are unsure why.

What is monotropic thinking?

Monotropic thinking is working through one line of thought at a time and following it a long way, rather than holding several ideas loosely side by side. Writers on the theory link it to thorough, literal reasoning and to losing the place when interrupted. It describes a tendency, not a clinical term.

What is the opposite of monotropism?

The opposite of monotropism is polytropism, meaning many interests active at once at a lower intensity. Most people are thought to fall somewhere between the two, with no sharp boundary. Polytropism is not presented as the better way to be, only as the style that autistic writers say much of the world is built around.

What is a monotropic split?

A monotropic split is a community term for what happens when someone with deep, narrow attention has to keep dividing it to meet outside demands. It was named in a 2022 guest blog post by Tanya Adkin. Many autistic people recognise it, but no study has tested it as a defined concept.

Can children be monotropic?

The theory does not limit monotropism to adults, and the 2005 paper’s advice begins with the child’s own interests. Direct measurement is lacking, though. The Monotropism Questionnaire was tested on people aged 16 and over, and we found no validated version for younger children.

References

• Adkin, T. (2022, July 14). Guest post: What is monotropic split? Emergent Divergence.
• American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Association.
• Arunachalam, S., Steele, A., Pelletier, T., & Luyster, R. (2024). Do focused interests support word learning? A study with autistic and nonautistic children. Autism Research, 17(5), 955-971.
• Ashinoff, B. K., & Abu-Akel, A. (2021). Hyperfocus: The forgotten frontier of attention. Psychological Research, 85(1), 1-19.
• Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, H. (2019). Doing things together: Exploring meanings of different forms of sociality among autistic people in an autistic work space. Alter, 13(3), 168-178.
• Brosnan, M., & Camilleri, L. J. (2025). Neuro-affirmative support for autism, the Double Empathy Problem and monotropism. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 16, 1538875.
• Buckle, K. L., Leadbitter, K., Poliakoff, E., & Gowen, E. (2021). “No way out except from external intervention”: First-hand accounts of autistic inertia. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 631596.
• Crompton, C. J., Ropar, D., Evans-Williams, C. V., Flynn, E. G., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2020). Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective. Autism, 24(7), 1704-1712.
• Dwyer, P., Dakakni, M., Faris, L., & Unwin, K. (2025). Monotropism, hyperfocus, or autotelic personality? Attention styles and autism [Preprint]. PsyArXiv.
• Dwyer, P., Sillas, A., Prieto, M., Camp, E., Nordahl, C. W., & Rivera, S. M. (2024). Hyper-focus, sticky attention, and springy attention in young autistic children: Associations with sensory behaviors and cognitive ability. Autism Research, 17(8), 1677-1695.
• Dwyer, P., Sillas, A., Saron, C. D., & Rivera, S. M. (2025). Investigating autistic hyperfocus and monotropism: Limited convergence of event-related potentials, laboratory tasks, and questionnaire responses. Research in Autism, 127, 202683.
• Edgar, H., & Adkin, T. (2025, September 4). What is monotropism? Understanding a neuroaffirming theory of autism. National Autistic Society.
• Garau, V., Murray, A. L., Woods, R., Chown, N., Hallett, S., Murray, F., Wood, R., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2023). Development and validation of a novel self-report measure of monotropism in autistic and non-autistic people: The Monotropism Questionnaire [Preprint]. OSF Preprints.
• Grissom, A., Finke, E., & Zane, E. (2024). Verbal fluency and autism: Reframing current data through the lens of monotropism. Autism Research, 17(2), 324-337.
• Happé, F., & Frith, U. (2006). The weak coherence account: Detail-focused cognitive style in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(1), 5-25.
• Heasman, B., Williams, G., Charura, D., Hamilton, L. G., Milton, D., & Murray, F. (2024). Towards autistic flow theory: A non-pathologising conceptual approach. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 54(4), 469-497.
• Landry, R., & Bryson, S. E. (2004). Impaired disengagement of attention in young children with autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(6), 1115-1122.
• Milton, D. J. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883-887.
• Murray, D. (1992). Attention tunnelling and autism. In Living with autism: The individual, the family, and the professional. Durham Conference Proceedings.
• Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139-156.
• Murray, F. (2018, November 30). Me and monotropism: A unified theory of autism. The Psychologist. British Psychological Society.
• Murray, F. (2023, July 24). Monotropism Questionnaire online. Monotropism.org.
• Murray, F., & Hallett, S. (2023). ADHD and monotropism. Monotropism.org.
• Murray, F., & Lawson, W. (2022). History of monotropism. Monotropism.org.
• Papińska, A., Brzezińska, A., & Moszoro-Yilmaz, M. (2026). Monotropic processing, ADHD symptoms, and autistic traits in adults: A preliminary adaptation of the Monotropism Questionnaire. Psychiatria Spersonalizowana / Personalized Psychiatry, 5(1), 150-161.
• Rapaport, H., Clapham, H., Adams, J., Lawson, W., Porayska-Pomsta, K., & Pellicano, E. (2024a). “In a state of flow”: A qualitative examination of autistic adults’ phenomenological experiences of task immersion. Autism in Adulthood, 6(3), 362-373.
• Rapaport, H., Clapham, H., Adams, J., Lawson, W., Porayska-Pomsta, K., & Pellicano, E. (2024b). ‘I live in extremes’: A qualitative investigation of Autistic adults’ experiences of inertial rest and motion. Autism, 28(5), 1305-1315.
• Remington, A. M., Swettenham, J. G., & Lavie, N. (2012). Lightening the load: Perceptual load impairs visual detection in typical adults but not in autism. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 121(2), 544-551.
• Rong, Y., Yang, C.-J., Jin, Y., & Wang, Y. (2021). Prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A meta-analysis. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 83, 101759.
• Ward, T., Popazov, S., Adams, J., Clapham, H., Lawson, W., Karaminis, T., & Pellicano, E. (2026). Understanding phenomenological experiences of autistic inertia using online community discourse. Communications Psychology, 4(1), 18.

Further Reading and Research

Recommended Articles

• Hyperfixation vs Special Interest: What the Evidence Says
• Neurodivergent Masking
• Autistic Burnout vs Depression: How to Tell Them Apart

Suggested Books

• Lawson, W. (2011). The Passionate Mind: How People with Autism Learn. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
  • Written by one of the theory’s co-authors, this looks at single-focused attention and what it means for learning.
• Milton, D., Ridout, S., Martin, N., Mills, R., & Murray, D. (Eds.). (2020). The Neurodiversity Reader. Pavilion.
  • A collection on the history, concepts and practical side of neurodiversity, with Dinah Murray among its editors.
• Frith, U. (2003). Autism: Explaining the Enigma (2nd ed.). Blackwell.
  • A classic account of cognitive theories of autism, and an earlier edition is the book that first prompted Dinah Murray’s work on the subject.

Recommended Websites

• Monotropism.org
  • The theory’s home online, with the full 2005 paper, its history, and writing on ADHD and on applying it in practice.
• National Autistic Society
  • The UK autism charity, with a knowledge hub including a short explainer on monotropism for professionals.
• Reframing Autism
  • An Australian autistic-led organisation publishing accessible articles on autistic experience, including monotropism.

Kathy Brodie

Kathy Brodie is an Early Years Professional, Trainer and Author of multiple books on Early Years Education and Child Development. She is the founder of Early Years TV and the Early Years Summit.

Kathy’s Author Profile

To cite this article please use:

Early Years TV Monotropism: The Attention Theory of Autism. Available at: https://www.earlyyears.tv/monotropism/ (Accessed: 1 November 2026).