Damian Milton

Damian Milton (born 1973) is a British sociologist and social psychologist who specialises in autism research and is an autism rights advocate. He is a lecturer at the University of Kent and a consultant for the National Autistic Society in the United Kingdom, with academic qualifications in sociology, psychology, philosophy and education. His interest in autism began when his son was diagnosed as autistic in 2005, and he was himself diagnosed with Asperger syndrome in 2009. He is best known for the double empathy problem, first published in 2012, which holds that autistic and non-autistic people struggle in both directions to empathise and communicate with each other, rather than autistic people being inherently deficient in empathy. He has co-authored over 250 publications on autism, and his work draws on the social model of disability.