Monotropism

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Monotropism is a person's tendency to focus their

A tendency to focus attention tightly has a number of psychological implications. While monotropism tends to cause people to miss things outside their attention tunnel, within it, their focused attention can lend itself to intense experiences, deep thinking and flow states.^[2]

However, this

Since the amount of attention available to a person is limited,

Monotropic individuals have trouble processing multiple things at once, particularly when it comes to multitasking while listening. For example, some students have trouble taking notes in class while listening to a teacher[3] and may find it difficult to read a person's face and comprehend what they are saying simultaneously.^[1] A common tendency is for individuals to avoid complex sensory environments because of this hypersensitivity.^[3] Monotropic individuals may suppress attention and focus on something else, or develop great depth in a given interest or skill.^[4]

Implications for practice

Murray et al. (2005) proposed certain steps to help autistic individuals, such as increasing "connections", building understanding through the child's interests, and making connections between people and concepts more "meaningful and less complex."^[1]

See also

• Autism and memory
• Caetextia
• Monomania
• Idée fixe
• Introversion
• Centration
• Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder

References