The double empathy problem is the idea that communication difficulties between autistic and non-autistic people are often mutual, rather than being caused only by autistic deficit. In simple terms, it suggests that autistic people may misunderstand non-autistic people, but non-autistic people may also misunderstand autistic people. This idea was introduced by Damian Milton in 2012 and is now a major concept in contemporary autism research.
This article is part of the Neurodivergent Learning at University guide on this site.
This matters because older autism models often assumed that social communication problems came mainly from something lacking within the autistic person. The double empathy problem challenges that assumption by focusing on the mismatch between people with different ways of communicating, interpreting, and relating. Recent academic reviews and commentary continue to treat this as an important shift in how autism and social interaction are understood.
What Does the Double Empathy Problem Mean?
The idea is straightforward: when autistic and non-autistic people interact, misunderstandings can happen in both directions. The problem is not always that one person lacks empathy. It can be that both people are trying to make sense of each other using different expectations, communication styles, and social assumptions. Milton’s original paper described this as a “disjuncture in reciprocity” between differently disposed social actors.
Who Came Up with the Double Empathy Problem?
The term was introduced by autistic scholar Damian Milton in his 2012 paper On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’. That paper has become one of the most cited foundations for this way of understanding autistic and non-autistic interaction.
Why Is It Called “Double” Empathy?
It is called “double” because the difficulty is understood as two-way rather than one-way. Instead of seeing autistic people as failing to understand others while non-autistic people are assumed to understand correctly, the theory says that both groups may find cross-neurotype understanding difficult. Recent reviews still present this as one of the core features of the double empathy account.
How Is This Different from Older Autism Theories?
Older approaches often focused on ideas such as autistic people lacking a theory of mind, empathy, or social motivation. The double empathy problem does not deny that social interaction can be hard. Instead, it reframes the difficulty as something that happens between people, not only within the autistic person. Recent academic commentary continues to argue that research should move away from studying autistic people’s “deficits” in isolation and pay more attention to the interaction itself.
What Does Research Say?
Current research supports two main points. First, communication difficulties are not exclusive to autistic people; non-autistic people may also struggle to understand autistic communication. Second, autistic people may communicate especially well with other autistic people, suggesting that the issue is often a mismatch rather than an inability. A recent British Journal of Psychiatry article summarised both of these findings clearly.
More recent studies also continue to find support for the double empathy problem in areas such as empathic accuracy, social connection, and therapeutic relationships. A 2024 study on empathy and autistic communication reported findings that support the theory and noted implications for interpersonal and therapeutic relationships with autistic people.
Why Does the Double Empathy Problem Matter?
This idea matters because it changes how people think about support, inclusion, and communication. If misunderstandings are mutual, then the answer cannot be only to make autistic people act more non-autistic. It also means non-autistic people, schools, workplaces, professionals, and services need to learn how to understand autistic communication better. Recent neuro-affirmative autism support literature explicitly connects the double empathy problem with a more balanced and respectful approach to support.
Examples of the Double Empathy Problem in Real Life
The double empathy problem can show up in many everyday situations, such as:
- An autistic person being seen as rude when they are actually being direct
- a non-autistic person assuming lack of eye contact means lack of interest
- An autistic person finds non-autistic communication vague or full of hidden rules
- a teacher or employer misreading autistic communication as disengagement
- Both people are leaving a conversation feeling misunderstood
These kinds of experiences are consistent with the broader theory that social difficulty often arises from a mismatch in expectations and interpretation rather than from one-sided failure.
Does the Double Empathy Problem Mean Autistic People Never Struggle Socially?
No. The theory does not say that autistic people never struggle socially. It says that those struggles should not automatically be treated as evidence of a simple lack of empathy or a one-sided social deficit. Social interaction can still be genuinely difficult. The difference is that the theory places more attention on reciprocity, context, and mutual understanding.
What Does This Mean for Schools, Families and Workplaces?
It means environments should become more reflective about how communication works. In schools, staff may need to think carefully about whether a pupil is being misunderstood rather than simply “failing socially.” In workplaces, managers may need to recognise that misunderstanding can go both ways. In families and support settings, it encourages more curiosity and less blame. Recent neuro-affirmative work argues that this shift has important implications for support and mental health.
How Does This Connect to Autistic Sociality?
The double empathy problem connects closely with the idea of autistic sociality. If autistic people may communicate and connect differently, rather than less, then social problems may arise because autistic and non-autistic people are working from different norms. That is one reason the double empathy problem is often used to support more respectful, less deficit-based understandings of autistic communication.
Final Thoughts
The double empathy problem is important because it reframes autistic communication difficulty as something that often happens between people, not simply inside the autistic person. It challenges one-sided deficit models and supports a more balanced view of autistic and non-autistic interaction. Since Milton’s 2012 paper, the idea has gained substantial support and remains highly influential in current autism scholarship.
Selected Academic References
- Milton, D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. Link.
- Crompton, C. J., et al. (2025). Autism diagnosis and the double empathy problem. The British Journal of Psychiatry.
- Cheang, R. T. S., et al. (2024). Do you feel me? Autism, empathic accuracy and the double empathy problem.
- Brosnan, M. (2025). Neuro-affirmative support for autism, the double empathy problem and implications for practice.
- López, B. (2022). Commentary on Autism and the double-empathy problem. British Journal of Developmental Psychology.