Wired Differently

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Chapter I describes a household argument as two radios tuned close to, but not exactly on, the same frequency. This page adds a second layer to that picture. Even when two people are tuned to the same station, the receivers themselves are built differently. One receiver picks up every word literally.

One loses the second half of a long sentence. One hears a flat tone as anger, and another hears a period at the end of a text as a slammed door. None of these receivers is broken. They were built to different specifications, and the static comes from not knowing how the other person's receiver is built.

Where this fits: This page belongs to Pillar IV, Tune how you send and receive, part of the Five Pillars. In you: know your own wiring, pace and how you hear things. Between you and others: translate across different wiring and tone. A mismatch is a tuning problem, not a moral failing.

Below you'll find how each common wiring tends to take in information, a set of examples showing how the same words can sound different to different people, and practical ways to talk to someone wired differently than you. When you want to test a real sentence, the Chat analyzer lets you pick both people's wiring, type a phrase, and see how it might land.

A few words, used carefully

Neurotype means the general way a brain is built to take in, sort and respond to information. Neurotypical describes the wiring most social customs were designed around. Neurodivergent describes wiring that differs from that design in a meaningful way. Estimates suggest 15 to 20 percent of people worldwide are neurodivergent, a figure that is likely low because many people never get assessed (Understood).

For scale, the CDC's latest count identifies about 1 in 31 U.S. children as autistic (HHS), and an estimated 15.5 million U.S. adults, 6 percent, have a current ADHD diagnosis (CHADD, citing Staley et al., 2024).

This page covers three kinds of wiring, and labels which is which. Some are neurodevelopmental, meaning present from early life: autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, auditory processing differences, developmental language disorder and Tourette syndrome. Some are traits that run across every group: alexithymia and high sensitivity. And some are conditions that change how words land even though they aren't neurotypes in the strict sense: anxiety, trauma and OCD. They're included because they reshape the receiver just as much, and because they often travel with the others.

On language: in a large international survey of 654 autistic adults, most preferred identity-first terms like "autistic person" to "person with autism" (Keating et al., 2023), and this page follows that preference. The same study's main recommendation is the one to follow in your own home: ask each person which words they prefer.

Jump to a wiring:

• Neurotypical
• Autistic
• ADHD
• Autistic + ADHD
• Dyslexic
• Dyspraxic
• Auditory processing
• Language disorder (DLD)
• Tourette
• Alexithymia
• Highly sensitive
• Anxiety
• Trauma
• OCD
• Same words, many receivers
• Mixed pairs
• Relationship dynamics
• Situation and room
• Ten rules

The problem runs in both directions

Dr. Damian Milton named this the double empathy problem: when people with very different experiences of the world interact, the breakdown in understanding is mutual, not a deficit sitting inside one person (National Autistic Society). The evidence behind it is worth knowing, including where it's still being tested:

• In a 2020 experiment, 72 adults passed a 30-detail story down chains of eight people. All-autistic chains passed on as much detail as all-non-autistic chains, while mixed chains lost detail faster and reported lower rapport (Crompton et al., 2020).
• A much larger repeat of the study, registered in advance, with 311 participants across Edinburgh, Nottingham and Dallas, did not find the extra information loss in mixed chains. It did find that rapport was lower in mixed and autistic chains than in non-autistic chains (Nature Human Behavior, 2025). The honest reading: mixed pairs can pass facts along fine, but the conversation tends to feel harder to both people.
• Non-autistic observers form less favorable first impressions of autistic people within seconds. A 2025 review of 29 studies found the bias appeared across audio, video and combined recordings, but was not significant when observers read only transcripts of the words (systematic review of first impressions). The judgment was about the delivery, not the content.
• Non-autistic people also find it harder to read autistic people's emotions. In one study, 81 non-autistic adults listening to spoken accounts were less accurate at following the feelings of autistic narrators, especially sadness and happiness (Cheang et al., 2024).

The practical lesson applies to every pairing on this page, not only autistic and neurotypical. When a message goes wrong between two different wirings, don't open a case against either person. Assume two decoders, both partly accurate, and compare notes.

Three channels, tuned differently

Chapter I splits every message into three channels: pace (speed and timing), register (the tone underneath the words) and urgency (how soon something matters). Each wiring is more or less sensitive on each channel, and most mismatches happen on one of them.

Same words, many receivers

These are everyday sentences, each followed by how different wirings might receive it. None of these readings is wrong. Each one is what that receiver was built to pick up.

Mixed pairs: where the static usually comes from

Most homes, friendships and workplaces mix several wirings. These are the pairings where crossed signals come up most, and one adjustment that tends to help each side.

The relationship changes the landing

Wiring says how a brain takes words in. A relationship is the arrangement under the words: what you share, what you did not choose, and what it would cost to be direct. The same sentence can be a loose plan between friends and a broken agreement between partners. That is not a trick of tone. It is the dynamic.

People often speak indirectly when they are not sure the other person agrees. An indirect sentence leaves room to retreat, which protects the bond and lowers the social cost of a disagreement (Achimova, Franke & Butz, 2025). That cost is not equal in every arrangement. A hint between friends risks awkwardness. The same hint between co-parents can sound like someone is building a record. The seven dynamics below are the ones this program is built around. A fuller map of how the tools fit each one is on How it fits your relationships.

The Chat analyzer lets you pick one of these dynamics along with both people's wiring, then shows how that relationship may change the way a real sentence lands. Wiring and relationship are different layers. A phrase can be clear for someone's wiring and still land hard in that relationship, or the other way around.

Situation, environment, and caring for both needs

The same sentence changes when the room changes. A calm kitchen can hold "can we talk about the dishes." A parking lot, a group chat, a child in the doorway, a 1 a.m. text, or a third drink cannot. Situation is what is happening. Environment is where you both are. Both sit on top of wiring and relationship.

In a hard moment, each person also has a conflict need, and the two often do not match. One person may need the bond confirmed immediately, because silence feels like losing you. The other may need space before their body can think. Neither need is the childish one. Forcing the talk before bodies settle causes a second blowup. Taking space with no signal makes the pause feel like an ending. The caring move is to do the small thing first (a word of reassurance), then the pause, then the return.

A flooded body often needs at least 20 minutes before it can hear again, and the return should not slip past the next day. Name the break. Do something that actually settles you. Come back. A walk-out with no return time is a different act from a pause (Gottman Institute, on the length of the break).

Step 3 of the translator asks for the situation, the setting and what each person needs. Step 4 can also take the plain facts and one reply; both are optional. The facts are not scored as part of the message. The translator then suggests a bridge from those choices, plus both people's wiring, the channel and how each of you is doing. Check your state first with Today’s Weather. WP-11, the Calm-Down Kit, is for settling your body.

Ten rules that work across every wiring

These rules shape how a sentence arrives. They are not permission to pile topics, blame a person, or treat a miss as proof of bad intent. A hard conversation still needs the ground rules: one topic, no criticism of the person, say that you are not against them, and pause when either of you is too upset to go on.

1. Say the request as a request. "Could you…" beats "It would be nice if…" for almost every receiver.
2. Put a real time on it. "By 8" or "after dinner," never just "later" or "soon."
3. One thing at a time. If there are three things, write them down.
4. Lead with the headline. Put the ask or the reassurance in the first sentence.
5. Say the feeling in words. Don't make anyone decode it from your face or punctuation.
6. Leave the sarcasm out of anything serious. It's the signal most likely to get lost or amplified.
7. Choose the channel on purpose. Writing gives processing time. Voice carries warmth. Face to face helps with auditory processing. Ask which works best.
8. Allow silence. A pause is usually processing, not refusal.
9. Check what arrived. "What did you take from that?" catches static before it becomes a fight.
10. Describe the behavior, never the person. "The bill was late" is fixable. "You're irresponsible" isn't, for any wiring.

Make a Wiring Card

The most useful thing two people can do with this page is tell each other how they're built, before a hard conversation, not during one. The Wiring Card turns the lines below into a card you can fill in, print, or copy. Nothing you type is saved. Many autistic adults describe wanting exactly this kind of explicit information about plans and tasks (Sutherland et al., 2025).

A Wiring Card isn't a contract, and it changes with your state. When you're depleted, every line gets stricter. Check your state first with Today’s Weather or WP-02.

Where it connects

• The Wiring Card is the short version of this page: how you receive words, what silence means, and how a request should be phrased.
• The Chat analyzer tests a real sentence against both people's wiring, and against the relationship they are in.
• Chapter I, Why we get out of tune, covers pace, register and urgency, the three channels every wiring tunes differently.
• Chapter III and WP-02 cover how much of a reaction was already there before the words arrived.
• Chapter IV covers letting a comment land, and why one person genuinely doesn't see what the other can't stop seeing.
• WP-09, Say it so it lands, turns a raw reaction into fact, feeling and ask before you send it.
• The Carrier Wave Decoder helps in the moment a conversation starts to go wrong.
• WP-13 is a 90-second daily check-in that keeps small crossed signals small. Check-ins is the longer format, for one hard topic, once the setting is right. Use the translator before that meeting, on your own sentence.