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Dinah Karen Crawshay Murray (27 May 1946 - 7 July 2021) was a writer, educator and campaigner for autism people. She collaborated in developing the theory of monotropism as a way of explaining autism in terms of a tendency to focus intensely on a subject.
In the 1990s she was a community support worker in London, an experience which led her to found APANA (Autistic People Against Neuroleptic Abuse), highlighting the overuse of tranquillisers given to intellectually disabled people.
During those years, Murray collaborated with autistic associates Wenn Lawson and Mike Lesser, to develop the theory of "monotropism", an attempt to explain autism in terms of a tendency to focus on a single subject at a time. Seeing advantages of computers as communication tools for autistic people, she and Lesser founded the campaigning organisation, Autism and Computing. Their work contributed to the passage of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
Her work included teaching and research, presenting at conferences, online and in person. In 2017, Murray was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Autistic Society. She contributed to an on-line communications technology application, AutNav, which achieved funding from Scottish Autism just before she died.
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