![]() Thus, there is no single consensus to what constitutes hyperfocus. In many cases, hyperfocus goes undefined, relying on the assumption that the reader inherently knows what it entails. Hyperfocus, though ostensibly self-explanatory, is poorly defined within the literature. We propose that hyperfocus is a critically important aspect of cognition, particularly with regard to clinical populations, and that it warrants significant investigation. Hyperfocus is most often mentioned in the context of autism, schizophrenia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but research into its effect on cognitive and neural functioning is limited. ![]() ‘Hyperfocus’ is a phenomenon that reflects one’s complete absorption in a task, to a point where a person appears to completely ignore or ‘tune out’ everything else. These findings show that having time with autistic friends and family can be very beneficial for autistic people and played an important role in a happy social life. Third, autistic people felt like they belonged with other autistic people and that they could be themselves around them. Second, autistic people often felt they were in a social minority, and in order to spend time with neurotypical friends and family, they had to conform with what the neurotypical people wanted and were used to. ![]() First, they found spending with other autistic people easier and more comfortable than spending time with neurotypical people, and felt they were better understood by other autistic people. We analysed the interviews and found three common themes in what our participants said. We asked them questions about how it feels when spending time with their friends and family, and whether it felt different depending on whether the friends and family were autistic or neurotypical. To find out whether this was a common experience, we did hour-long interviews with 12 autistic adults. Finally, we are interested in considering the conditions and circumstances under which neurodiverse writing methods may be emancipatory.Īlthough autistic people may struggle to interact with others, many autistic people have said they find interacting with other autistic people more comfortable. Second, we propose a reading within which the ‘sensory stranger’ provides a valuable epistemic asset whose potential exceeds the ‘particularity’ of neurodivergent experience. First, we use this exploration to consider sensory normativity, and how this may affect the ways in which neurodivergent people are able to construct themselves and their identities. This chapter therefore consists of an auto-ethnographic project with a triple aim. Here, the writers take the collective experiences of their own ‘bodyminds’ as a source of data. We therefore consider neurodivergent experience less as an object of study than as a perspective. ![]() Taking as a starting point Simmel’s conceptualisation of the stranger, whose ‘position as a full-fledged member (of society) involves both being outside it and confronting it’, we propose neurodivergence as a form of Simmelian sensory stranger-hood, phenomenologically, spatially, and temporally situated as a tool for critical exploration of expressions of – and discourse around – cognitive normate sensory experience. ![]() Sensory experience is subject to considerable political and normative pressure, often felt, but rarely theorised. Two of these responses fail for reasons that are themselves connected with the behavioural and/or causal heterogeneity of autism. This paper: (a) identifies the non‐disorder claim as the most central of these, based on its prominence in the literature and connections with the practical policy claims that the paradigm is supposed to support (b) describes the heterogeneity of autism at the behavioural and causal levels, and argues that at the behavioural level this encompasses ways of being autistic that are harmful in ways that cannot be not wholly attributed to discrimination or unjust social arrangements, challenging the claim that autism is not a disorder (c) considers and rejects responses to this challenge based on separation of high‐ and low‐functioning autism, separation of autism from co‐occurring conditions, and viewing autism as part of an individual’s identity. Its central claims are that autism and other neurodivergent conditions are not disorders because they are not intrinsically harmful, and that they are valuable, natural and/or normal parts of human neurocognitive variation. The neurodiversity paradigm is presented by its proponents as providing a philosophical foundation for the activism of the neurodiversity movement. ![]()
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