4.2 Executive Dysfunciton and Attentional Flexibility

Mainstream interpretations of autism often focus on executive dysfunction, particularly in shifting attention, managing tasks, or transitioning between activities. These traits are typically framed as impairments—failures to meet a normative standard of attentional flexibility.

The Monotropic Expansion model offers a reframing: difficulties with redirection are not inherently dysfunctional, but arise from the cognitive strain of contextual interruption. Once a focal point has anchored and begun to expand meaningfully, interruption requires cognitive re-anchoring and reprocessing of surrounding context—an effortful and often disorienting experience.

Rather than labeling this as inflexibility, the model identifies a structural inertia to cognitive investment. What appears as delayed processing or resistance may instead reflect a higher cognitive cost to disruption, not a reduced capacity for control. This distinction has implications for therapeutic support, suggesting that scaffolding transition through shared context is more effective than externally imposed task-switching.