Autistic people often experience difficulties with social communication but now a new book by a Swansea University expert aims to improve understanding between neurotypes.

In Understanding Others in a Neurodiverse World, Dr Gemma Williams sets out to explain how we can all communicate better despite our differences. 

She seeks to make sense of the communication breakdowns that often happen between autistic and non-autistic people using relevance theory – a framework used to explain how humans understand each other.

She said: “Historically these breakdowns in mutual understanding have been framed as autistic communicative impairments, but my work reframes those misunderstandings as a ­two-way problem and offers a theoretical explanation of why they might be happening  ­­­and ultimately how to ward against them.  

“As an autistic linguist and language teacher, I found it really fascinating to observe how communication sometimes broke down between autistic and non-autistic people but that international professionals I was teaching who were using English as a second or third language often easily understood one another. 

“This made me realise that communication isn’t really about the words we use but the ability to share cognitive spaces, and relevance theory revealed itself as a really useful tool for untangling all of that.”

Dr Williams, who is a research officer with the Wellcome Trust-funded Autism: from Menstruation to Menopause project in the School of Health and Social Care, also spoke about the book and her research at this year’s ALSO Festival. 

She says it is very much aimed at a general readership: “Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people and their loved ones are a core audience, but so are people interested in language and cognitive science, educators and health and social care providers.” 

Understanding Others in a Neurodiverse World will be published by Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd on July 29 and is available for preorder now

Read more about Autism research at Swansea University