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Mind

Nine profiles of neurodiverse people reveal rich and creative worlds

From a police detective to an orthopaedic surgeon, Daniel Tammet shows that there is no such thing as a single neurodiverse experience in his book, Nine Minds: Inner lives on the spectrum

By Eleanor Parsons

24 July 2024

Apr 13, 2024; Harrison, New Jersey, USA; A Autism Acceptance banner is displayed before a match between Chicago Fire FC and the New York Red Bulls at Red Bull Arena. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports - 23018299

The message of Nine Minds is that there is no such thing as a single neurodiverse experience

Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports/Reuters

Nine Minds
Daniel Tammet (Wellcome Collection)

How do you see inside the mind of someone else, how they really experience the world? Often, our mental shortcuts let us assume that everyone encounters it as we do.

But they don’t: we all experience the world differently. And that is where reading or listening to other people’s stories helps. In Nine Minds: Inner lives on the spectrum, Daniel Tammet, himself autistic, creates narrative portraits of nine neurodiverse people, setting out…

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