The Double Empathy Problem

The Double Empathy Problem is a theory created by Autistic academic Dr. Damian Milton. His theory suggests that the problems in communication between Autistics and neurotypical people are a two-way street: not only does the Autistic person have difficulty understanding the neurotypical person, but the neurotypical person also does not understand the Autistic person. Research appears to confirm that this is the case.

Research Studies

This research study found that neurotypical adults had difficulty deciphering mental states of Autistic adults (as depicted in animations), while they did not have difficulty determining the mental states of neurotypical adult animations.

Edey et al. (2016)

This research study also found that neurotypical adults had difficulty deciphering mental states of Autistic adults (but they used real-life videotaped interactions rather than animations), but not neurotypical mental states. The study also found that Autistic adults were considered equally expressive in their reactions, suggesting that Autistic expression is not less but rather different.

Shepperd et al. (2016)

This research study used the idea of the game of telephone to see how well information was transferred between groups of people divided by neurotype. They had three different groupings (with three groups of each so a total of nine groups) - all neurotypical, all Autistic, and a mix of neurotypical and Autistic. One person in each group was told a story by the researcher and then had to relay the story to the next person, who then told the story to the next, etc. They judged how many details of the story had been shared correctly at each stage. What they found is that the neurotypical-only and Autistic-only groups shared information equally well, while the mixed group was significantly less effective in information sharing.

Crompton et al. (2020)

Autistic Social Skills

There is a pervasive idea out there in the world that says that Autistic people lack social skills. What the Double Empathy Problem tells us is that Autistic people have perfectly good Autistic social skills, just as neurotypical people have perfectly good neurotypical social skills. If you are a neurotypical person reading this, we hope that you take the time to try to understand the world from the perspective of Autistic people rather than judging our Autistic ways of being as a deficit or disorder.

References

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: the international journal of research and practice, 24(7), 1704–1712. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361320919286

Edey, R., Cook, J., Brewer, R., Johnson, M. H., Bird, G., & Press, C. (2016). Interaction takes two: Typical adults exhibit mind-blindness towards those with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 125(7), 879–885. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000199

Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883-887.

Sheppard, E., Pillai, D., Wong, G.TL. et al. (2016). How easy is it to read the minds of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder?. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46, 1247–1254. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-015-2662-8