The Value of Thoughtful Silence in Neurodivergent Minds.

[GHA]

For many neurodivergent individuals, silence isn’t a gap to be feared or rushed through — it’s a working space. It’s the canvas on which thoughts arrange themselves, patterns form, and clarity emerges. In that quiet, ideas can mature without being interrupted by the pressure to “fill the air.”

In contrast, for many neurotypical, silence can feel like a break in the social rhythm — something they rush to fill, even if it means breaking it with words that serve no real purpose and, at best, amount to little more than noise. This isn’t about one way being “better,” but about recognising that the comfort or discomfort with silence comes from fundamentally different cognitive wiring.

Where a neurotypical mind may thrive on a constant exchange of words to maintain social connection, a neurodivergent mind may value the pause — the space to process, refine, and respond with depth rather than immediacy. For NDs, silence is not absence; it is a form of presence.

 

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This isn’t about one way being “better,” but about recognising that the comfort or discomfort with silence comes from fundamentally different cognitive wiring.

Not necessarily a neurodivergent difference, travel to remote areas where people are used to having space to themselves and you'll find that they also enjoy silence and don't have to fill every moment with the spoken word.

I'm not talking about small towns here, if there's a town then it's Not remote, just rural. Where I lived for a decade there was 1 person for every 7 square kilometres. In places like that if you constantly chatter like a monkey it's seen as a sign of fear.

 

[GHA]

Not necessarily a neurodivergent difference, travel to remote areas where people are used to having space to themselves and you'll find that they also enjoy silence and don't have to fill every moment with the spoken word.

I'm not talking about small towns here, if there's a town then it's Not remote, just rural. Where I lived for a decade there was 1 person for every 7 square kilometres. In places like that if you constantly chatter like a monkey it's seen as a

Not necessarily a neurodivergent difference, travel to remote areas where people are used to having space to themselves and you'll find that they also enjoy silence and don't have to fill every moment with the spoken word.

I'm not talking about small towns here, if there's a town then it's Not remote, just rural. Where I lived for a decade there was 1 person for every 7 square kilometres. In places like that if you constantly chatter like a monkey it's seen as a sign of fear.

Agreed — in remote areas, people are often more humble, and above all more humane..