Both sides of the story: communication, conflict and the double empathy problem

A 90-minute training for SENCOs, teachers, TAs, pastoral, behaviour and safeguarding leads, and anyone in school who deals with incidents between children.

An autistic girl tells a classmate she is doing it wrong. The classmate hears an insult. Over the next few weeks the autistic girl is laughed at, left out and told it was only a joke, and then she pushes someone in the corridor, which is the first moment anyone in school sees. Both girls feel bullied, and both may be telling the truth. This training explains why, and shows schools how to investigate conflict fairly and resolve it without teaching autistic young people that being themselves is the problem.

Duration: 90 minutes

Format: online as standard; in-person delivery available. Interactive slides, two short reflections, a breakout discussion, action planning and a one-page staff handout

Delivered by: a neurodivergent AGN trainer. Every AGN trainer is neurodivergent

Price: £360 for up to 40 staff. No VAT currently. Contact us for larger groups or bespoke adaptation

Scheduling: dates by arrangement, twilights welcome. Contact hello@autisticgirlsnetwork.org

The challenge

For decades, autistic people were described as lacking empathy and struggling to read others. The double empathy problem, set out by autistic researcher Damian Milton, shows the difficulty runs both ways: autistic and non-autistic people misread each other. In school, though, only one side’s reading usually counts.

When there is an incident, the non-autistic child’s account arrives straight away, in words, with the upset adults expect to see. The autistic child’s may come days later and at home, flat or very literal, as “I don’t know”, or not at all because she is masking. So she is recorded as the one who was unkind, and the weeks of quiet, deniable harm that came first go unrecorded.

Then the resolution asks her to explain herself on the spot, say sorry with the right face and look everyone in the eye. What she learns is that the real version of her is the problem and masking is safer. The cost lands later, at home, in burnout and in Barriers to Attendance.

What the 90 minutes cover

  • Part 1, communication is more than words: the many ways autistic young people communicate, and why an instant spoken answer is often the hardest one to give.

  • Part 2, the double empathy problem: a mismatch rather than a deficit, changing the question you ask about a child, and what the behaviour you see might actually be telling you.

  • Part 3, when misreading looks like bullying: why both children can feel targeted, whose account gets heard and why, the build-up adults do not see, and eight questions to ask before deciding who the bully is.

  • Part 4, safe enough to stop masking: how masking is learnt, how incident resolution can force it, better questions to ask after an incident, and ten changes to the environment that cost nothing.

  • The close: teaching every child that different communication is not wrong communication, and three things you will change.

Key learning outcomes

  • Read communication more widely. Recognise the many ways autistic young people communicate, and why an instant spoken answer is often the hardest one to give.

  • Understand the double empathy problem. See a breakdown between autistic and non-autistic people as a two-way mismatch, not a deficit in the autistic child.

  • Investigate conflict fairly. Separate what was meant from how it landed, so the quicker, louder account is not automatically the one believed.

  • Make it safe to stop masking. Change the environment, the questions and the way incidents are resolved, so being herself is never treated as the problem.

Take it to the young people (Follow-on sessions)

Staff training changes how the adults respond. Half of every conflict is between two children, so the other half of the change is with them.

  • Learner workshop: Conflicts & Communications, 30 minute webinar plus digital handout, £120.00 (no VAT currently). For autistic and neurodivergent young people: communication differences, the double empathy problem and self-advocacy, with a neurodivergent trainer. When communication breaks down, it is not their failing.
  • Peer assembly: Conflicts & Communications, 20 minute virtual assembly plus digital handout, £120.00 (no VAT currently). For a whole year group or key stage: every young person learns that people communicate differently, and what that means in the playground, the classroom and the group chat.

Why AGN

Autistic Girls Network is the UK’s only national, neurodivergent-led charity for the girls and gender-diverse young people the education system has failed. This training comes from two places: the research evidence, and the 36,000 families in our community, many of whom have taken the phone call that starts “there’s been an incident” and heard a very different story at bedtime. When the same story arrives that often, it isn’t an anecdote. It’s a pattern.

Book this training

Book this training, or ask about the learner workshop and peer assembly: contact us

Everyone taking part will be told exactly what to expect beforehand, so that we eliminate as much uncertainty as possible (uncertainty = anxiety).

We are UK-based so training takes place in UK time. We can accommodate UK evening and twilight sessions; if you are in Australia or New Zealand it will need to be an early start.

Families of autistic and neurodivergent girls and gender-diverse young people are welcome in our community.