A Mismatch of Salience

by Damian Milton

A Mismatch of Salience brings together a range of Damian Milton’s writings that span more than a decade. The book explores the communication and understanding difficulties that can create barriers between people on the autism spectrum and neurotypical people. It celebrates diversity in communication styles and human experience by re framing the view that autistic people represent a ‘disordered other’ not as an impairment, but a two-way mismatch of salience. It also looks at how our current knowledge has been created by non-autistic people on the ‘outside’, looking in. A Mismatch of Salience attempts to redress this balance.

Genres: Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Disability, Nonfiction, Psychology

179 pages, Paperback

Published November 6, 2017

Reviews

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Autistic autism researcher Damian Milton has written excellent things about the common disconnects and differences between autistic people and non-autistic people. Each chapter can be read as a stand-alone essay.

Rather than looking at autistic people as having a "communication deficit" Damian Milton writes from the perspective of communication difficulties being on multiple sides, not just on our end. As an autistic adult, I have spent my entire life trying to better understand and communicate with other people (most of whom are non-autistic), but non-autistic people haven't typically spent much time at all trying to figure out how to better communicate with me.

Milton's "double empathy problem" theory takes away the blame that's often heaped upon autistic people, and puts the responsibility of communicating with others squarely on everyone instead of on just autistic people.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book.
It exposes social assumptions about life and autism as the artificial creations that they are.
It takes a while to access Damian's quite academic language, though is very much worth the effort.
And as the content comprises a series of essays, often with similar references, the book becomes easier to read with each chapter.
But the initial inaccessibility, that meant I'd a couple of false starts, is what prevented ne giving the book 5 stars

[Dea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an important read for me. The ideas are paradigm-shifting and I really value author's insights. This was a collection of essays and I was hoping for a more approachable read, so I give it 4 starts. But the impact deserves a 5!

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

great