We’ve all heard that transitions are hard for autistic people. But that explanation is incomplete. The truth is, transitions aren’t inherently difficult; enforced transitions in hostile environments are. For monotropic autistic people, transitions are not just inconvenient. They are ruptures, tears in the continuity of our flow state, where attentional tunnels collapse and cognitive trauma floods in (Milton, 2012).
This is where we offer the concept of lilipadding. Not as a “hack” or strategy, but as a relational, co-constructed intervention that honours autistic attention and acknowledges the cognitive injuries caused by being forced to operate polytropically in a monotropic world (Murray et al., 2005).
This concept was created by Tanya Adkin, and its development supported by David Gray-Hammond.
Monotropism, Monotropic Split, and Cognitive Trauma
Monotropism is a way of processing the world through a deep, narrow attentional lens. It’s not that we can’t multitask; we engage so intensely with fewer things that competing demands often stretch us beyond what our system can manage (Adkin, 2023a; Murray et al., 2005). Eventually, something gives. Often, it’s us.
Monotropic split (Adkin, 2023a) refers to what happens when the monotropic mind is overwhelmed by too many demands exceeding attentional resources; monotropic minds have difficulty regulating the intensity of attention given. It’s not just a redirection of focus; it’s a collapse of our natural attention tunnel under the weight of environmental expectation. And it hurts. It’s the precursor to shutdown, burnout, and emotional overwhelm. It can sit behind things like demand avoidance and hyperarousal. This isn’t dysfunction; it’s trauma. (Raymaker et al., 2020; Kapp, 2020)
“Despite any person having a finite amount of attentional resources, a monotropic bodymind can not regulate the amount of attention given to competing demands, resulting in the overloading of monotropic resources.” (Adkin, 2023b)
This constant cognitive trauma of splitting out attentional resources is what we have conceptualised as being behind the emergence of what Adkin (2023b) calls Meerkat Mode. The hypervigilance aspect of this is particularly relevant to the neurodivergent person who fears unexpected and unsupported transition and change.
And yet, instead of building environments that respect this, we keep asking people to “try harder” and “build resilience”
As Dr. Nick Walker has said-
“You cannot unqueer a Queer bodymind”.
The Environment Isn’t Just Outside Us
We’re fond of Beardon’s golden equation:
Autism + Environment = Outcome (Beardon, 2017).
It should be carved into every school policy, clinical guideline, and parent handbook. But let’s go further.
“Environment” isn’t just what surrounds us and what we live within. Our body is part of our environment. Chronic illness, sensory dysregulation, trauma residue, pain, all these are internal factors that quietly tax our attentional bandwidth (Robertson & Simmons, 2015; Williams, 1996).
Hunger. Grief. Noise. Fibromyalgia. Guilt. Shame. Meerkat-mode hypervigilance (Adkin, 2023b). These aren’t secondary issues; they’re internalised environmental pressure. They drain capacity before we’ve even stepped into the room. If we want to reduce monotropic split, we have to take internal environments as seriously as external ones (Gray-Hammond & Adkin, 2025).
What We Get Wrong About Timers
Let’s talk about the classic go-to: the timer.
We’re told they help. And for some, maybe they do. But for many monotropic people, timers aren’t a heads-up. They’re a countdown to rupture. They mark the moment where the world will demand movement, whether we’re ready or not. It’s like hearing a trapdoor creak open beneath you. If we consider the moment of transition as a liminal point, then it is that liminal point that causes the anxiety (Gray-Hammond, 2022). Feeling the time countdown to it does not make the transition any less terrifying.
Timers measure time. But they don’t ease transitions. We need something more relational. More human. This isn’t compatible with monotropic neurology. It’s neuronormativity.
Lilipadding: Not a Hack, A Lifeline
Lilipadding is built on consent, pacing, and attunement. It’s a relational practice. It’s about offering subtle nudges rather than sudden shocks. It’s a bridge between states—honouring the current tunnel of attention while gently inviting the next.
Lilipads sound like: “Lunch in 30 minutes. Do you want to chat about what you fancy eating?”
They look like: Sitting beside someone while they finish something. Bringing food to the space they’re already in. Asking rather than telling.
It’s not a demand, it’s a stepping stone. Designed with the person, not at them.
The Role of Flow and Consent
Flow is sacred. It’s not a luxury, it’s our nervous system’s regulation strategy. Breaking that flow without consent isn’t neutral. It’s violent (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
Lilipadding lets us maintain continuity. It lets us move while staying connected to ourselves. It builds safety where fractures once lived. It makes transitions possible without rupture. It keeps us in our natural state of monotropic flow.
This Is Not About Compliance
Lilipadding isn’t about getting autistic people to comply with transition. It’s about supporting capacity.
The question is never “How do we make them move?” The question is “What’s standing in their way?”
Demand avoidance isn’t defiance. It’s feedback. Shutdown isn’t regression. It’s a stop sign. Burnout isn’t failure. It’s a collapse. These aren’t behavioural problems. They’re system signals. Lilipadding is a way to listen (O’Nions et al., 2014; Raymaker et al., 2020).
Final Word: Unmasking the Transition Myth
We don’t struggle with transitions because we’re broken. We struggle because the systems we’re asked to move through are hostile to our way of processing.
So we offer lilipads, as sensory bridges and cognitive bridges, as relational anchors, as quiet kindnesses.
We don’t leap over ponds. We step from lilipad to lilipad, carefully.
And we learn to carry the boulder together.
Reference List
Adkin, T. (2023a). Guest Post: What Is Monotropic Split?. emergentdivergence.com.
Adkin, T. (2023b) What Is Meerkat Mode And How Does It Relate To AuDHD?. emergentdivergence.com
Beardon, L. (2017). Autism and Asperger Syndrome in Adults. Sheldon Press.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row.
Gray-Hammond, D. (2022). The New Normal: Autistic musings on the threat of a broken society. Independently Published
Gray-Hammond, D., & Adkin, T. (2025) Monotropism: Monotropic Split & The Bodymind Environment. emergentdivergence.com.
Kapp, S. K. (Ed.). (2020). Autistic community and the neurodiversity movement: Stories from the frontline. Palgrave Macmillan.
Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.710008
Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361305051398
O’Nions, E., Viding, E., Greven, C. U., Ronald, A., & Happé, F. (2014). Pathological demand avoidance: Exploring the behavioural profile. Autism, 18(5), 538–544. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361313486206
Raymaker, D. M., Teo, A. R., Steckler, N. A., Lentz, B., Scharer, M., Delos Santos, A., & Nicolaidis, C. (2020). “Having all of your internal resources exhausted beyond measure and being left with no clean-up crew”: Defining autistic burnout. Autism in Adulthood, 2(2), 132–143. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2019.0079
Robertson, A. E., & Simmons, D. R. (2015). The sensory experiences of adults with autism spectrum disorder: A qualitative analysis. Perception, 44(5), 569–586. https://doi.org/10.1068/p7833
Williams, D. (1996). Autism: An inside-out approach. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
