Understanding Sensory Differences

Impact of Sensory Barriers

While the processing of sensory information does not cause distress for many non-Autistics, for Autistics, our experiences can be quite different (MacLellan, 2021). Experiencing the world with heightened sensory perception or shifting and unpredictable sensory processing can be very hard to explain to someone who doesn’t experience it firsthand. However, the impacts are real, everpresent and exhausting. The following is a basic list of some of these impacts or the systems which are impacted:

Attention Regulation

Attention regulation refers to the ability to control and direct one's focus of attention in a manner that is appropriate for the task or environment. It involves the mechanisms by which individuals manage, maintain, and shift their attention as needed. (Posner & Rothbart, 2007) 

Autistic Masking

Autistic masking refers to the practice of concealing or suppressing autistic traits and behaviours in order to fit in or conform to societal expectations.(Pearson & Rose 2021) Autistic Masking involves the unconscious and conscious suppression of authentic responses, including sensory triggers and is a conditioned trauma response. (Pearson & Rose, 2024)

Communication Impact

An individual's ability to effectively express themselves and understand others can be impacted by a variety of factors, including sensory processing differences.  This can manifest in challenges with speech, nonverbal communication, and social interaction.(American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA, 2020)

Depletion of Energy Reserves (may also refer to 'Spoon Theory')

Depletion of energy reserves refers to the gradual exhaustion of mental and physical energy resources due to ongoing demands or stress. Based on Maja Toudal's research, "depletion of energy reserves" refers to the phenomenon where individuals, particularly those who are autistic, experience a significant drain on their cognitive and emotional resources due to the demands of sensory processing and social interactions. Toudal's work suggests that autistic individuals often face heightened sensory and social challenges that can lead to rapid exhaustion of their mental and physical energy reserves. This depletion can manifest as increased difficulty in self-regulation, reduced tolerance for stress, and a need for longer recovery periods.(Toudal & Attwood, n.d.) Many in the Disability community will also refer to The Spoon Theory which is a metaphor used to describe how people with chronic illness or disability manage their limited energy. (Miserandino, 2003). When all our "spoons" are used up, we have maxed our reserves for the day. When it comes to things like sensory triggers which often require more spoons or energy reserves for those of us with sensory processing differences, pacing our use of spoons or energy reserves is an incredibly important skill to acquire and this can be very had to do when societal and systemic barriers include significant gaps in understanding amongst employers, colleagues and community members.

Heightened Emotions

Heightened emotions refer to the experience of emotions at an intensity level that is higher than what is 'typically' expected. This can involve stronger reactions to stimuli, prolonged emotional responses, and greater sensitivity to emotional triggers. Heightened emotions are often observed in individuals with anxiety disorders, sensory processing differences, and certain neurodevelopmental conditions. (Linehan, 1993)

Muted may look like:

• seeking loud noise or holding noisy objects

• being unaware of own volume

making loud noises in quiet situations

Auditory stims can include:

• covering/uncovering ears

• putting noise to ears (e.g., clicking or snapping, tapping )

• singing, whistling, humming, talking to self

• listening to same song repeatedly or ASMR

Increased Efforts to Self-Regulate

Increased efforts to self-regulate involve the heightened or intensified attempts to manage one's emotional and sensory responses in challenging environments or situations.(Thompson, 2014) 

Instinct to Avoid the Sensory Trigger

The instinct to avoid sensory triggers involves the natural tendency to evade or escape from sensory inputs that are perceived as unpleasant or overwhelming, such as strong smells, loud noises, or bright lights.(Grandin & Panek, 2013)(e.g., strong/pungent smell, loud/sharp noise, bright or flickering light and many others) 

Internalized Ableism 

Internalized ableism occurs when individuals with disabilities adopt and internalize societal prejudices and negative beliefs about disability, leading to self-doubt and reduced self-worth.(Gerschick, 2000)

Misophonia

Misophonia is a condition where specific sounds provoke intense emotional and physical reactions. These reactions can be more extreme than typical responses to noise and can affect daily life. It affects 1 in 5 people in their lifetime. It is more common in women and those assigned female at birth, typically developing in early adolescence.(Cleveland Clinic, 2024)

Symptoms:

• Emotional Reactions: Intense anger, anxiety, disgust, fear, and irritation.

• Physical Reactions: Increased blood pressure, chest tightness, goosebumps, rapid heart rate, sweating.

• Behavioural Reactions: Avoiding trigger sounds, leaving situations, vocal or physical reactions to stop the sound.

• misjudging personal space and pressure

• bumping, bouncing and crashing into people or things

Proprioceptive Stims may include things like:

• pressing body into objects/people and/or squeezing into small or tight spaces

• tensing the joints or muscles

• rough play or wrestling with peers

• flapping arms or hands

Sensory Overload

Sensory overload occurs when an individual is exposed to more sensory stimuli than they can process, resulting in feelings of being overwhelmed and stressed. This can lead to difficulties in functioning and coping due to the excessive amount of sensory input. (Scheydt et al., 2019)

Sensory Triggers/Issues

• physical environments are not designed with our sensory differences in mind

• lighting choices are often the least expensive but the most triggering (e.g., many of us can hear the constant buzzing of fluorescent lights drilling into our brain)

• harsh bells, buzzers, hand dryers, ringing phones are everpresent in places like schools, hospitals, and other organizations

• open concept spaces and excessively echoing corridors and shared spaces 

• physical environments are built based on outdated notions of what is suitable

• Fabrics, tags and seams can make simple activities like changing, putting on coats and shoes unbearable

Trauma Response

When we feel the impact of sensory barriers, our learned instinct, our trauma-induced survival response is often to conceal the effect these triggers have on us as much as we can, for fear of standing out as “abnormal”.  Despite societal conditioning to mask this impact, it is still a learned, unnatural response which requires us to expend extensive energy, and this causes a multitude of issues. In addition to the impacts described previously, the ongoing need to mask our response to these triggers leads to Burnout, Depression and worse.  Autistics have high rates of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders as well as many other co-existing conditions.  Many of these conditions may feasibly be related to anxiety and coping with human-made spaces which are not built for us and gold standards of what it means to be human that are not based on our realities.  Identifying sensory triggers is key to finding accessible solutions.

Exponential Impact of the Sensory Trauma Cycle 

Some impacts of Sensory Triggers causing trauma may be visible, but many are not:

• Visible stimming may begin or increase due to sensory overload (Kapp et. al, 2019) or it may decrease if person is masking due to trauma (Pearson & Rose, 2024)

• Distractibility, forgetfulness; poor performance or need to increase efforts to keep up

• Loss or reduction of spoken language or other communication differences

• Seen as “too emotional” even though the increased likelihood of emotional presentation is directly related 

• “Outed” as being different

• Productivity decreased

• Efforts to advocate for sensory safe spaces are ignored 

• Perception by others is altered if we reveal our sensory differences

• Seen as a burden, pathologized, bullied for being different

• Presumption of incompetence, pathologization by others

• Reduced opportunities for advancement due to assumptions about capabilities

• Discrimination

• Stigmatization

• Marginalization

Lack of Understanding at the Workplace

All of the above impacts are compounded by a lack of understanding by others at the workplace (especially those in positions of responsibility).  When your sensory experience is so different from others, you have to work so much harder to fend off the impact of sensory inaccessible spaces. This often means masking the impact AND also compensating for the impact by working harder to achieve what others do even though, most of the time, we could achieve it easily in the right sensory circumstances). The lack of understanding by those in hiring, planning and leadership roles may be because of factors such as: 

• Lack of current job-embedded training--people don't know what they don't know

• Neurotypical Privilege-people often don't recognize 

• barrier if it is not a problem for them

• Lack of and inaccurate representation of Autistics in the media

• Personal and Professional ingrained biases   

• Internalized Ableism due to own undisclosed or unknown neurodifferences

• Systemic Ableism embedded into policies and procedures (e.g., interviews, hiring, promotional processes, networking)

Systemic Ableism

Systemic Ableism refers to the structural and institutional discrimination that devalues individuals with disabilities by prioritizing able-bodied norms and standards. This form of ableism is deeply embedded in societal systems, such as education, employment, and healthcare, leading to inequitable opportunities and social exclusion for disabled individuals. It operates both consciously and unconsciously, through policies, practices, and cultural beliefs that perpetuate the marginalization of disabled people (Bogart & Dunn, 2019), With regards to sensory barriers, systemic biases can manifest in many ways:  

• Organizational Biases which work against Autistic ways of experiencing the world 

• Accommodation Efforts improperly implemented

• Systemic defaults which favour Neurotypical standards

• Training frequently comes from a pathologized, deficit-based understanding of Autism

• disconnect between accommodation process and what is actually needed because those in HR and management as well as colleagues have never been trained authentically by those with lived experience 

• ironically rampant ableism in educational sector which is still largely due to legacy of historical systemic oppression and Medical Model 

• Disclosing being Neurodivergent in many ways is still unsafe, and when you do it is held against you; instead, many mask all aspects of our authentic ways of being, which means we also can’t use the strategies we could use to assist us (e.g., we are not safe to openly stim or we out ourselves; this is true for wearing tinted glasses, brimmed hats, using lamps instead of fluorescent death beams)