The double empathy problem, explained simply

The old story, and the new one

For decades it was assumed that communication problems between Autistic and non-Autistic people were caused by a deficit in the Autistic person: a lack of “theory of mind”, an inability to understand how others think and feel. That put all the responsibility for adapting on Autistic people and treated non-Autistic communication as the unmarked, correct standard.

In 2012, Autistic researcher Damian Milton proposed the double empathy problem. When two people with very different ways of experiencing and processing the world try to communicate, both find it harder to understand the other. The difficulty isn't located inside the Autistic person. It emerges in the gap between two different ways of being.

What the evidence shows

Research since has supported this. Autistic people communicate fluently and effectively with other Autistic people: they pass on information accurately, read each other's emotional signals, build rapport and cooperate easily. In studies where information is passed along a chain of participants, chains made entirely of Autistic people preserve information as well as chains of non-Autistic people, while mixed chains lose more. And Autistic people rate interactions with other Autistic people as having higher rapport than mixed interactions.

In other words, the “deficit” largely disappears when the person you're talking to shares your style. That removes the foundation from a whole tradition of practice built on the deficit model.

What it means in everyday life

• Directness isn't rudeness. Many Autistic people are unusually honest and precise, and expect the same back. It's a different set of social values in which clarity is respect and indirectness is obscurity.
• Non-Autistic people also misread. If an Autistic person can't read someone's tone, that person is very probably failing to read the Autistic person's signals, style and attempts to connect. The asymmetry is in who gets marked as having failed.
• Repair is shared. When communication breaks down, both sides are responsible for bridging the gap. In practice the burden falls almost entirely on the Autistic person, who is expected to explain, clarify, apologise and adapt.
• The goal isn't better performance of neurotypicality. It's everyone widening their communication repertoire: more explicit, more literal, more tolerant of silence and different pacing, more accepting of writing and other modes, and less reliant on hints and unspoken rules.

Where it bites hardest

Assessment

Non-Autistic clinicians judging Autistic communication are, by definition, in a cross-neurotype conversation. Judgements about whether someone has “appropriate” reciprocity are made by a party who is also experiencing the gap, and whose difficulty is recorded as the other person's characteristic.

Conflict

An Autistic person's attempt to clarify is read as argumentative, and a non-Autistic person's attempt to soften is read as evasive. Each side's repair strategy makes things worse for the other, and the Autistic person, who is usually outnumbered, often carries the blame.

Unequal power

Between professional and client, teacher and pupil, or manager and employee, the non-Autistic interpretation becomes the official record. The Autistic account is written down as their perception, and the other account as what happened.

Why it matters for how you see yourself

If you've spent your life being told you can't read people, this is the other half of the story. It's a mismatch of styles, not a broken you. Finding other Autistic people, where the mismatch often melts away, can be a revelation. See our guide to finding Autistic community. And for another idea that came from Autistic people rather than clinics, read about monotropism.

Common questions

Who came up with the double empathy problem?

Autistic researcher Damian Milton proposed it in 2012. He argued that communication difficulties between Autistic and non-Autistic people are mutual and emerge from differences in how each experiences the world.

Does the double empathy problem mean Autistic people have no empathy problems at all?

It says the difficulty is not one-sided. Autistic people communicate very effectively with other Autistic people, which shows the difficulty comes from the mismatch, not from a fixed deficit in one group.

How can I use this idea in real life?

Ask for and offer more explicitness, allow silence and different pacing, accept written communication, and share responsibility for repair when things go wrong, instead of expecting one person to translate.

What's wrong with the theory of mind deficit idea?

It placed the problem entirely inside Autistic people and treated non-Autistic communication as the standard. Research now shows mixed conversations break down both ways, while Autistic-to-Autistic communication works well.