Access to this full-text is provided by SAGE Publications Inc.
Content available from Autism
This content is subject to copyright.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613211034072
Autism
2021, Vol. 25(8) 2423 –2425
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13623613211034072
journals.sagepub.com/home/aut
As I write, another Autism Awareness Month has passed
highlighting the fact that so much has changed in our
understanding of how autism impacts our lives. We still
have a long way to go, however, until it becomes the norm
that the principle of ‘nothing about me without me’ is
upheld throughout autism research and autism practice.
Autistic researchers and practitioners will play a central
role in delivering this vision.
Currently, the autistic community is mourning the pass-
ing of one such person, a true pioneer, Dr. Dinah Murray.
It is fitting that we pay a tribute to her achievements and
contributions, for these have enriched our lives and over-
laid the autism landscape with understanding, acceptance,
action and advocacy.
I remember a conversation with Dinah, my dearest
friend and very close colleague of more than 24 years, con-
cerning certain publications about autism, identity, empa-
thy and being human. It made us angry to think some
researchers had once considered autistics to be less than
human! However, today such thinking would be shocking.
We have come a long way in terms of our thinking about
autistics and their ability to connect to empathy. It is now,
mostly, the norm to consider autism as being part of human
neurodiversity.
Dinah’s work played a key role in that transition, though
it has not always been recognised by the academic main-
stream. When she started out in research and practice, it
was usual to think that autistics lack a theory of mind
(Baron-Cohen et al., 1985). Now, we can instead consider
the theory of being ‘monotropic’ – connecting to self and
to other, via shared interest (D. Murray et al., 2005) – as a
way to understand autism. Dinah and I spent many long
hours around her kitchen table during wintry evenings
talking over the different tributaries of a single focussed
attention system or a dynamic interest system of mind.
Thinking back, it amazes me how our paths first
crossed. Dinah happened to be at a conference, in 1998,
where I was presenting on ‘Life and Learning in Autism:
Single Focused Attention’. We were both equally excited
to hear of the other’s research. It turns out while I had been
researching and teaching such concepts in Australia, Dinah
had been developing the same thinking in England. That
first meeting was to be the beginning of our working part-
nership and a lifelong friendship.
‘Language and Interests’ was the title of Dr. Dinah
Murray’s PhD thesis in 1985, which was completed at
University College London. In this work, Dinah argues
for ways to understand thought and language. Over time,
Language, interests and autism:
A tribute to Dr. Dinah Murray
(1946–2021), an autism pioneer
Wenn B Lawson
Abstract
So much has changed in our understanding of how autism impacts our lives. We still have a long way to go, however,
until it becomes the norm that the principle of ‘nothing about me without me’ is upheld throughout autism research
and autism practice. Autistic researchers and practitioners will play a central role in delivering this vision. Currently, the
autistic community is mourning the passing of one such person, a true pioneer, Dr. Dinah Murray. It is fitting that we pay
a tribute to her achievements and contributions, for these have enriched our lives and over-laid the autism landscape
with understanding, acceptance, action and advocacy.
Keywords
autism, autism pioneer, monotropism, Murray
The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Corresponding author:
Wenn B Lawson, The department of Disability, Inclusion and Special
Needs (DISN), The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham,
B15 2TT, UK.
Emails: wenbe2@outlook.com, w.lawson@bham.ac.uk
1034072AUT0010.1177/13623613211034072AutismLawson
letter2021
Letter to the Editor
2424 Autism 25(8)
this led to a model of the mind as a dynamical system and
the impact this has upon interest and, hence, upon lan-
guage. A few years later, considering the role interests
have in linking the minds of self and other was the prompt
Dinah needed to apply her model to autism. Dinah had
first-hand knowledge of autistic people because at that
time she worked as a support person for autistic adults.
She knew the current theories that tried to explain autism
just didn’t cut it.
Dinah concluded that in the allistic (non-autistic) world,
interests were many-facetted; individuals used their lan-
guage to capture the attention of others and draw them into
their own interests. That is, language was used to manipu-
late the interests of others. She then proposed that in autism,
our brains were operating via attention tunnelling (D. K.
Murray, 1992) and a lack of guile, which meant we were
taken over by our own interest with no spare attention to
join that of others (D. K. Murray, 1992, 1995, 1996). The
resultant interest systems were named ‘polytropism’ (many
channels) in allistics and ‘monotropism’ (single channels)
in autistics (D. Murray et al., 2005).
As time went by, Dinah’s passion for supporting autistic
individuals translated into what might practically assist
them. She moved into the field of autism and technology,
in her determination to explore ways to support autistics,
especially those who did not use speech to communicate.
Together, initially with Mike Lesser in the mid-90s, they
set up a programme of support called ‘Autism &
Computing’ which became a charity. It was while working
with Mike Lesser and a young autistic artist, Ferenc Virag,
that Dinah was able to reveal the capabilities of a mind
tuned in to a specific interest. Ferenc worked with an ani-
mation programme1; his monotropic focus enabling him to
learn the programme faster than it would take typical stu-
dents of animation at college. With funds from The
National Lottery Arts Board and The Jerwood Foundation,
a film was created showing Ferenc demonstrating behav-
iours said to be absent in autistics. While working with
computers he showed other awareness, self-awareness,
self-esteem, playfulness, exploration, forethought, rele-
vant speech, creativity, turn-taking, sociability, desire to
show, communication, concentration and co-operation.
Dinah never tired of researching and exploring how
interest and attention were being played out in everyday
lives of autistics. Time after time, I would come down to
breakfast to find her absorbed in some research or other
as she leant over her laptop, with a mug of cold coffee
sitting solo on the kitchen table. Dinah Murray (2008)
was also involved with myself and many others, in the
making of the film Something About Us. Hundreds of
DVD copies were given away to agencies, schools and
families to help spread broader understanding of autism.
Later, I joined Mike, Dinah and others, as AUTreach-IT
was formed with the goal of making autistic lives better
through technology.
Travelling extensively with Dinah, we saw so much
overlap in our reactions that we had to conclude she was
autistic herself, despite rejecting its medical framework. As
such, she contributed to many other projects, lectures and
books (D. Murray, 2005, 2008; D. Murray & Aspinall, 2006;
D. Murray & Lawson, 2007). Dinah was also associated in
a formal or informal capacity with a wide range of autistic-
led organisations including the Participatory Autism
Research Collective; Autangel; and the Autistic Advisory
Group at University of Glasgow. Continuing her passion for
harnessing the power of technology, she contributed to the
Autism Dialogue, a game development project to highlight
the great diversity of autism and the development of AutNav,
a new web portal, hosting accessible forums for autistic peo-
ple and people with learning disabilities. Throughout this
time Dinah campaigned tirelessly for the creation of a
Communication Support Worker role, to deliver access to
communication supports including the Internet for people in
supported accommodation or residential settings.
Since 1996, Dinah worked as a visiting Lecturer and
went on to become a tutor with the Autism Masters course
at Birmingham University. Many of her students have
gone on to better the world of autism, through their support
of autistic individuals, because of the insights Dinah per-
sonally shared with them. To hear some of these insights
for yourself, you can listen to a recent interview with
Dinah on the Different Minds podcast.2
In 2000, Dinah came to Australia and we toured together
for 6 weeks giving lectures and speaking at conferences
around the country. The focus was on introducing various
agencies, schools and support groups to an in-depth explo-
ration of monotropism in autism and how the use of tech-
nology could enable access to communication and lower
frustration in autism.
Dinah’s work has continued as she has fought so hard to
join the dots as to what is at the heart of being autistic. The
National Autism Project (NAP) funded by The Dame
Stephanie Shirley Foundation and launched in 2015 again
saw Dinah actively involved with getting autism better
understood, both in publications and active support.
In recent years, Dinah was introduced to the predictive
coding work of Karl Friston (2009). Friston recognised the
similarities between his model of the brain, and the origi-
nal equation from Mike Lesser (see Figure 1; Lesser &
Murray, 1997) depicting mind as a dynamical interest sys-
tem with different calibrations including monotropism.
This opens up a possible future synthesis of ideas about
minds, not just autism.
From Dinah’s original idea, the monotropism theory has
grown over many years. It gives us a theoretical framework
connecting interests, language and autism. It shows how
technology can be deployed in a far-reaching array of aca-
demic and community efforts towards better understanding
and support of autistics. I hope this letter draws attention to
the breadth and depth of Dinah Murray’s transformational
Lawson 2425
work and inspires more autism researchers to take up her
legacy. As Dinah has said, ‘we live in interesting times’!
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Wenn B Lawson https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5079-852X
Notes
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StXFQ8pH2W4
2. https://anchor.fm/differentminds/episodes/Monotropism-
euunut
References
Baron-Cohen, S., Lesley, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autis-
tic child have a theory of mind? Cognition, 21(1): 37–146.
Friston, K. (2009). The free-energy principle: A rough guide to
the brain? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(7), 293–301.
Lesser, M., & Murray, D. (1997). The model of the interest sys-
tem. http://www.autismandcomputing.org.uk/
Murray, D. (2005). Coming out Aspergers: Diagnosis, self-
disclosure and self-confidence. Jessica Kingsley.
Murray, D. (2008). Whose normal is it anyway. In W. Lawson
(Ed.), Concepts of normality: The autistic and typical spec-
trum (pp. 82–94). Jessica Kingsley.
Murray, D., & Aspinall, A. (2006). Getting IT. Jessica
Kingsley.
Murray, D., & Lawson, W. (2007). Inclusion through technol-
ogy for autistic children. In R. Cigman (Ed.), ‘Included or
excluded?’ The challenge of the mainstream for some SEN
children (pp. 151–157). Routledge.
Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention,
monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism,
9(2), 139–156.
Murray, D. K. (1992). Attention tunnelling and autism. In P.
Shattock & G. Linfoot (Eds.), Living with autism: The
individual, the family and the professional (pp. 183–193).
The Autism Research Unit, University of Sunderland.
Murray, D. K. (1995). An autistic friendship. In Psychological
perspectives in autism (pp. 183–193). Autism Research
Unit, University of Sunderland.
Murray, D. K. C. (1996). Shared attention & speech in autism. In
The Durham conference. Autism Research Unit, University
of Sunderland.
Available via license: CC BY 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
