The Double Empathy Problem #substack #shorts

5 Sept 2026 · 1 min

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The double empathy problem shows that autistic and neurotypical people understand each other at about 40%, while people of the same neurotype understand each other at 70-80%. Communication breakdowns aren't one-sided; they're mutual misunderstandings between different neurotypes.

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So by devil empathy, is that the concept where we relate by telling a similar story and that's how we share empathy?
It's a, it's a principle that describes a study that was done. I don't remember when, and it's been duplicated a ton of times where it's a comp— it's, it's double empathy. The double empathy problem was coined with a comprehension study. Where they put a group of people who are autistic together with autistic people, a group of people who are not autistic together with not autistic people, and then a group of people who are autistic and not autistic mixed. And what they found is that in situations where it was the mix, comprehension went down significantly by like down to like something like 40% or something. And the neurodivergent to neurodivergent, the neurotypical to neurotypical was like 70 to 80% of comprehension.