It was long thought that social communication difficulties experienced by autistic people were due to cognitive and social ‘deficits.’ This book offers a neurodiversity-affirming alternative to this problematic approach by presenting a novel perspective on cross-neurotype communication, for example between autistic and non-autistic people.

Autistic people often experience difficulties with social communication. This can impact all areas of life and can contribute to poorer mental health outcomes, reduced opportunities for fulfilling social interactions and barriers to health and social care, education and employment. Understanding Others in a Neurodiverse World offers a new way to conceptualise and understand why cross-neurotype misattunements in communication may happen by taking the double empathy problem – the reframing of social communication difficulties as a two-way problem, not simply the result of an autistic ‘deficit’ – and a cognitive linguistics theory, ‘relevance theory’, as a starting point.

Weaving together threads from critical autism studies, cognitive science, social justice, linguistics and sociology, this book offers a new perspective on understanding these breakdowns in understanding.