Session 2 - Sensory

https://sensationalbrain.com/free-resources/

https://skillbuilders.com.au/products/sensory-support-flip-book.html

5 Unusual Sensory Responses of Autism

1. Sensory modulation difficulties

Sensory modulation is the ability to create an appropriately graded response to incoming stimuli.

For example: raising your voice to be heard in a noisy environment or shading your eyes from the sun.

In autism, the brain may be unable to consistently generate the appropriate response due to sensory modulation issues.

This can lead to:

2. Hypo or hyper responses

These are under or over-responses to stimuli such as touch, pain, movement, taste, small, sights and sounds.

Tactile defensiveness: the tendency to overreact to ordinary touch sensations.

Gravitational insecurity: tendency to overreact to changes in head position and movement eg. being off the ground or high up, moving backwards or upwards.

These are two of the most common over-responses.

3. Arousal modulation difficulties

Arousal is the state of wakefulness, of being energised or alert.

The brain of those with autism has difficulty regulating arousal. This is linked to the autonomic nervous system that controls heart rate, blood pressure, sensory alertness, desire, mobility and reactivity. Those with autism may struggle to get to sleep or wake up from sleep. Tiredness my be an outward sign of this.

4. Distorted perception

Visual perception difficulties including difficulties with depth perception, distorted of size, shape, motion, recognising faces (prosopagnosia - face blindness) or seeing only small details rather than the whole.

Auditory perception and processing difficulties. Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) can frequently co-occur with ADHD and autism and is a condition of the brain where the ears hear perfectly well but the brain struggles to make sense of what has been heard.

5. Paradoxical responses

Those with autism may display seemingly ‘polar opposite’ behaviours simultaneously. 

For example: task-switching and struggling to main attention then suddenly become hyper-focused or hyper-fixated.

Or someone with autism may display a hypo reaction and hyper reaction simultaneously.

For example: they may be melting-down over the loud fire alarm but may not at all register your hand on their shoulder to guide them out of the building.

More information can be found from these sources:

https://autismspectrumnews.org/through-distorted-lenses-the-unacknowledged-impact-of-visual-perception-differences-in-autism/#:~:text=Prevalence%20in%20ASD&text=The%20most%20commonly%20reported%20were,Meets%20the%20Eye%2C%202022).

https://www.griffinot.com/arousal-attention-sensory-processing-adhd-autism/

There is a lot of research on these topics and journal articles would abound if you want to read more. You could search: "scholarly articles for sensory in autism".