Interoception and Relationship to Monotropism

Neurodivergent individuals may find it difficult to identify emotions of self or others and have difficulties to generalize concepts or interpret context. Concepts and context require divided attention and connection from self to other. Difficulties in these areas can be misinterpreted as poor Theory of Mind. However, object permanence, (the knowing that objects, people, emotions, seasons and so on, continue to exist, even when out of sight), and interoception, one’s inner sensing system require a person to attend to multiple stimuli to appreciate concepts such as ‘here, gone, still here but unseen, hungry, and so on’, may not be accessible in Autism as they are in the Allistic population. This chapter focuses our attention on the connections between monotropism and interoception.