Back at my desk this morning I came across an unfinished blog (prompted by an email from a mum with an autistic son) in which I was trying to work through my thoughts on the possible overlap of two potentially similar(?) cognitive states: ‘Flow’ and ‘Monotropism’, and whether a better understanding of the overlap (or the differences) might be helpful in developing a better insight into the social ‘attunement’ and connection attained during Intensive Interaction engagements.
So, according to the website ‘https://monotropism.org‘, monotropism is a theory of autism developed by autistic people, initially Dinah Murray and Wenn Lawson. They say that: ‘Monotropic minds tend to have their attention pulled more strongly towards a smaller number of interests at any given time, leaving fewer resources for other processes. We argue that this can explain nearly all of the features commonly associated with autism... If we are right, then monotropism is one of the key ideas required for making sense of autism, along with the double empathy problem and neurodiversity.‘
According to that eminent academic source Wikipedia: ‘In the monotropic mind, interests that are active at any given time tend to consume most of the available attention, causing difficulty with tasks that demand a broad attention span, including conventional social interaction’ … and it is perhaps (from our Intensive Interaction perspective) the last underlined (by me) aspect that should be of particular interest and concern.
Now, on the other side of the highly focused (or hyper-focused) attention coin sits ‘Flow’ (Csíkszentmihályi, M., 1970), which is seen very positively as an ‘optimal psychological state‘. The psychological state of ‘Flow’ is defined as being achieved when a person is completely absorbed in what they are doing i.e. being wholly immersed in an activity to the exclusion of sensing all other unrelated or external stimuli. According to Wikipedia (not again!) ‘Flow’ is ‘a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter… It is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what they are doing.‘
However, a predisposition for a monotropic hyper-focus can have a number of contrasting implications for autistic people: firstly it can cause them to miss sensing unrelated stimuli/issues outside their current monotropic focus; but on the other side of the coin, within their intense engagement they may attain an intrinsically motivating state of psychological ‘flow’. It must be remembered however that a monotropic focus can make it very difficult for some autistic people to easily redirect their attention out of a focused state e.g. at the start or end point of an activity, leading to what is often described (or labelled by others) as difficulties with ‘executive function’, leading to repetitive or perseverative behaviour.
Now, if when using Intensive Interaction we sensitively attempt to join in with, or reflect back to a person aspects of their current behavioural repertoire (as we do)… then they will not need to break out of their current monotropic focus or redirect or over-extend their available attention. Instead, attuned sociability will be offered and hopefully developed within and around their current monotropic engagement or interest, exploiting any intrinsic motivation associated with a developed ‘flow’ state.
If successful, in an attuned intersubjective sharing of the person’s monotropically focused activity, then Intensive Interaction can in theoretical terms bring the two sides of the ‘flow’ and ‘monotropic’ coin into play together; co-opting both monotropic interest and motivation at one and the same time. That’s probably why, in practice, it works so well.
Interestingly, according to Murray et al (2005) to help autistic individuals understand and navigate the world, they suggest the following strategies:
- Increase connections with other people through the child’s [person’s] interests: ‘start where the child [the person] is’.
- Allow them to pursue their own interests, and build understanding that way.
- Make tasks more attainable by decreasing the number and complexity of them.
- Make tasks and connections more meaningful.
All those suggestions fit right bang centrally within the Intensive Interaction working philosophy and rationale: again that’s probably why, in practice, it works so well.
Murray, D., Lesser, M. & Lawson, W. (2005) ‘Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism’. Autism: 9 (2), 139–56.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row.
Connecting with Intensive Interaction 