Autism Sensory

Seeking or Avoidant? Or both???

As autism is becoming better understood, we are beginning to make sense of autistic behavior and its relation to sensory processing.

Because autism can be described as uneven development of one’s neurological system, we are finding ways to sort and define these neurological “styles” of sensory processing.

Since each of us has differently developed neurology, we will have different struggles.

Roughly, these struggles and resulting behavior fall into two categories.
For some of us, our senses may get easily overloaded or overwhelmed. We may find that lights are too bright or that flickering patterns cause distress. We may find that things we hear become painful or distressing, annoying or anger producing when we can’t stop them or control them as they happen.

We may find the way things feel against our skin becomes distressing, too light of touch, too prickly, too stimulating in situations where we are in a breeze, cold or hot water, using lotions, being scrubbed with brushes or rough cloths, etc. We may hate the way something feels in our mouth, be overwhelmed by tastes, smells, or other sensory input. When we are overwhelmed by our sensory input, we become avoidant… try to avoid these experiences at all costs and when we can not escape to our own comfort level, we may flee, shut down, or melt down.

Those of us who need to escape our sensory input frequently and who do so in many ways, from refusing to go places, refusing to try new things, refusing to wear certain clothing or eat certain foods, hiding our eyes , covering our ears, turning our backs or running away…are called sensory avoidant. We must avoid sensory overwhelm and struggle to maintain performance of daily living while coping with and trying to avoid “too much input”.

The other broad category of sensory struggles falls in the opposite direction. Those of us who are sensory seeking require sensory stimulation and more sensory “input” than what our senses process in daily living.
We may enjoy jumping, in all forms, bumping into walls or furniture or other people, running, swimming, spinning, pounding, rolling, and any other physical experience .
We may smell, touch, or taste all sorts of things, in fact it is almost impossible to resist the impulse in many cases, even when doing so may be considered highly inappropriate.
Sensory seekers are more likely to hit or bite themselves, to deliberately seek sensations of hot or cold, bright and flickering lights, seek sounds of all sorts frequently at volume. Sensory seekers may want to be held or stroked, cuddled, may like deep tissue massage, the use of sensory tools such as mitts and brushes that provide different “feels” upon the skin, and may enjoy tight clothing or weighted vests or backpacks.

In some individuals, processing may be mixed, with certain experiences being overwhelming and others being sought.
Each of us is very different, each of our sensory systems are unique, so one must work to sort which sensory forms of input are appropriate or must be changed or carefully adjusted to prevent either overwhelm or to help satisfy the need for more stimulation .

Once we recognize the way we process input from all of our senses we can make adjustments to our lives to make every day living less struggle and more satisfying, safer, and easier overall.

Most articles on the internet, and most studies about sensory processing and autism are , of course, aimed at children. Very little information is available about adult sensory processing. Thinking back to your childhood, perhaps you will recognize patterns of behavior that will help you figure out what sensory experiences you try to avoid and what sensory experiences you might seek and enjoy, and wish to experience more frequently.

Are you sensory avoidant, sensory seeking, or do your both avoid and seek sensory input ?

Autism and the sense of touch

Sensory processing differences in Autism includes how things feel

We rely on our sense of touch to tell us about the world around us. Like all our other senses, processing of the input we get through how something feels to us can be skewed, from being super stimulating, irritating, distressing, soothing, or simply not feeling much at all.

The differences in autistic sensory processing can cause “every day” experiences of things we touch or feel to be distressing or even painful.

On the other hand, we can experience pain or other physical stimulus on much lower levels than what is considered the “normal” or “average” (neurotypical) experience.

Textures of food cause many issues with eating, from the way it feels when it touches our lips, feels in our mouth, or how it feels as we handle it (slimy, gritty, lumpy, greasy, sticky, chunky, sharp, hard, thick), food textures and temperatures can stand out as extremely uncomfortable experiences to many of us. This becomes a problem if we are forced to “clean our plate” or to try things that are extremely uncomfortable to us. Our hesitation to try new foods may be directly linked to fear that the taste or texture will be overwhelming to us.

Textures of clothing we must wear can often give us much distress. Is the fabric knotty, rough, too smooth and slippery, does it have seams in places where it feels uncomfortable? We can be super sensitive to pressure of restricting collars, cuffs, waistbands and the like.

Some of us respond to snug lycra or other close fitting clothing with a great deal of pleasure and comfort and others (like me) avoid that ‘squeezing’ slick texture due to extreme discomfort of being “touched all over at once”.

Some of us can be absolutely unaware of any clothing issues never notice that our shoes are giving our feet blisters, that the garment is far too tight or loose, etc etc.

Textures of the things we touch throughout the day can be distressing, from the utensils we use to eat, from the carpet we walk on barefoot, to the fabric upholstering the furniture, to the sidewalk, street, lawn, sand on the beach, the feel of the bath or shower under our feet or as we touch the enclosure surrounding it, the plastic or fabric shower curtain, the texture of the door we must open and close to enter or leave the hours or our rooms, etc etc.

We can become desperate to avoid the sensory overload of touching or experiencing the feel of many things throughout the day.

This sensory experience may well begin in infancy, long before we have words to describe the distress we are experiencing and probably is the cause of much mystification among parents trying to figure out what is distressing us children.

Sense of touch/ the way something “feels” is also involved in our ability to use tools, to do things as simple as walking or sitting, lying down, or standing. We use the sense of touch to help us know our surroundings, how much pressure to apply with our feet to push ourselves along as we walk, run, how much pressure to apply when we give hugs, give a handshake, or a kiss!
We need to be able to feel the pressure we apply and learn to judge how much to use when we open and close doors and drawers, open and close a jar lid, use eating utensils, lift and replace any objects from the surface it is resting on (think about how many times we do this daily).

We use touch and the way things “feel” every day in so many ways. If having my hair brushed feels like a thousand razors against my scalp every day, I will fight that sensation with all my might. I am not just being stubborn and willful, it HURTS!

If I avoid washing my hands because I hate the feel of that cold water running between my fingers, can we find another way to get my hands clean?

Most times we encounter resistance to things like baths, showers, shampoos, getting dressed, putting on our shoes, or using certain utensils or products for self care or household chores, it is not out of stubborn will, it is because these things are causing discomfort. Even as grown adults, we may not be able to explain for ourselves, we only know we hate it and want to avoid it because of the way it feels to us.

Children and many autistic adults are famous for resisting, but how many of the struggles we face might have the roots of resistance in pain, discomfort, or distress caused by the way we experience the task we are asked to deal with?

Even if you are grown up and living on your own, are there things in life that you avoid or simply hate?

There may be ways to make the experience better by adjusting the way it feels.

If you hate to bathe because of the rapid change of temperatures on your skin as you undress and how it feels to have the shower change temperatures, if you hate the feel of the water running over your face.
If you hate the feel of your wet hair when you shampoo, etc etc, there are other ways to get the job done. Think of the things you hate the feel of the most (might take some sorting to recognize what exactly is causing the distress) and make small changes to avoid those sensations.

If you hate the feel of using a washcloth, can you substitute a sponge or one of those nifty new silicone body brushes?

Will you be more willing to wash and dry off if you don’t use those stiff scratchy towels but instead dry with flannel, or velour/soft fabric of some sort?

Lots of sensations can be changed to make the experience better, regardless of what we struggle with.

We can often change the way something “feels” by using a substitute or doing things differently.

On the other side of this question is the “non sensitive” person who doesn’t notice much about what they may be feeling.(not emotions, the way something feels to our bodies physically) .

Blisters and sores on feet or pressure sores from sitting or lying too long in one spot, cuts and bruises which seem to suddenly appear with no memory of how they got there, even limping and not recognizing we have broken a toe or another bone…. lack of “feeling” or recognizing the feel of something as important and needing attention can sometimes be helped by occupational therapies which help us interpret what we are feeling, and helping us find and recognize when something hurts or is not right.

What is interesting to me is that hyper sensitivities and hypo sensitivities can exist in the same person or can vary with time, place, experience, even from hour to hour or day to day.

If you are not diagnosed yet with autism, the way you experience things you touch, or that touch you, might be another clue to being autistic.

Autism sensory experiences

The senses of smell and taste

Since the sense of smell and taste are more or less intertwined in several ways, I thought I would talk about them together.

Some of us really have issues with odors and scents, and either/or/also have struggles with the way things taste.

Our senses can be either hyper sensitive, or completely oblivious, and for many of us, these states can alter from time to time. It is not unusual for me to tolerate unusual odors over and over, and then one day the same odor will make me feel sick or dizzy or cause a headache. This is my experience as an adult. I have read many reports saying that sensory experiences , especially smell and taste, can be very much stronger in youngsters.

Stress can cause us to focus on one sensory experience and make it seem worse than it was when we were in the same room, smelling the same thing for hours without reaction. Or perhaps it is just that my overall self awareness is higher on certain given days.

Some days I might not notice a scent as though my sense of smell did not operate at all.
The same can be said for tastes.
It has been proven that the sense of smell enhances or provides much of the experience of things we taste.
Our neurology being uncertain or unreliable many times, we are often wary that we may have too strong a reaction to new experiences of odor or taste.
Some of us may become very fixed in our behavior surrounding going new places or trying new foods, because of strong responses of the past and unwillingness to experience such strong reactions again.
This fear of reaction or sensory overload is not only experienced with smells and tastes, but also with any sensory issues.

I have seen( and or experienced) these self defensive behaviors dismissed as being picky, obstinate, unreasonable, labeled “goofy” or “stupid” , ridiculed, demeaned, scoffed at, punished, dismissed as not important, and forcibly made to experience the undesired response again and again. I am sure many autistic persons can relate.
I remember being forced ( as avery small child) to eat everything that was put on my plate at risk of being spanked when I did not comply.

This was a common ‘child training’ procedure at the time I grew up ( in the 1950’s) you did something they said was wrong, you got spanked.

It did not take long for me to start screaming “no, no, no” with every spoon full I saw being dished onto my plate.
I was frequently spoon or hand fed , being admonished over and over to take just another bite. My face was held as the food was spooned in and I was punished if I dared to spit it out.
I refused to eat at all after experiencing that for a while, choosing to get the spanking over with rather than spending the meal time in dread of the inevitable.
When it was understood that I could not be forced to eat the items and the quantity that my mother chose for me to eat, when and how she wanted me to eat it, she finally gave up using force at meal time.
The damage was done, and meal time was traumatic for years.

Many autistic folks on the forums I attend report similar struggles with smells and tastes, and similar trauma as the result of being forced to smell or eat things that were offensive due to strong sensory responses.
Many report getting ill frequently in situations where they were forced to deal with adverse sensory input.
This too also applies to being taken places that were painful and distressing and being forced to ‘perform’ in many ways that were distressing, painful, or causing anxiety and fear.
It is no wonder that so many autistic adults (and children) are also diagnosed with anxiety and depression. We have had absolutely no say as to our experiences, have been forced repeatedly to endure what can only be described as stressful and painful circumstances and experiences, and scolded, punished and shamed when we were not equal to the situations we were forced into.

Strong responses to avoid sensory overload are seen as willfullness, issues of control or disobedience, dramas staged to gain attention, manipulative behavior to ‘have my way’ over parental/teacher authority. I suggest that it is self defense when faced with sensory responses that are too strong to control.
Meltdowns in the face of expectations to overcome intolerable sensory overload are not “tantrums” but true traumatic response to being asked to bear something that is actually unbearable.
One might perhaps be “trained” to endure more and more exposure to these sensory overload situations, but it is unreasonable to expect us to willingly submit to such demands, then to expect us to “enjoy it”, and unreasonable to expect us not to do all we can, especially as powerless children, to attempt to avoid such experiences.

As an older adult I can make my own decisions for what to eat, how much, and when.
I choose my own products to use for bathing, shampoo, cleaning, decide where smoking will be allowed, if at all, and I have the choice to use air fresheners, air cleaners, scented candles or ‘scent distribution’ products, laundry soaps, and other products.
I control the sensory experiences that surround me and I am able to excuse myself if the lady who sits next to me in public wears too much perfume or the smell of the burnt nylon coming from the neighbors garage is too bad – I can shut the windows.
I am able to choose my own meals, and season them to taste, I can find alternatives if I don’t like what is on my plate. I can choose something else.

Please consider young children at school, in day care facilities, even at home.
Consider please, older autistic people in care homes, hospitals, institutions, old age facilities and other residential situations where there is no choice.

How can we make things better for those individuals?
How can we make others aware of struggles which are not obvious but which cause so much distress and needless suffering for these individuals?

Autism and sensory processing

Texture, pressure, how does it feel to your skin and your body parts?

Sometimes it is not obvious that we have sensory struggles with the sense of touch/feel, yet so many problems in every day life are based in processing touch or feel of textures and issues with over or under stimulation regarding the sense of touch.

The way something feels to us can be one of the biggest hurdles of all to overcome.

Let us start with over stimulation or hypersensitivity.

For many of us bathing is a very distressing experience. The feeling of our skin being wet, or slick with oils and lotions, the feeling of powder slipping and spreading lightly over our skins, or the use of cloths, sponges, brushes, or any of the numerous tools sometimes used during a bath or a shower can cause immense distress. The feeling of the water moving over us as in a shower experience can cause fear, anxiety, actual pain, cause panic and an immense desire to escape the feel. As children, bathing chores are signals to fight against the sensory overwhelm.
Please understand that not only all the ‘feels’ of a shower or a bath are ‘wrong’ or distressing to sufferers, but add in the sounds, the lights, scents and other distressing sensory input and perhaps our resistance is more easily understood and perhaps even cause for a bit of sympathetic insights in devising plans to ‘get the job done’ with least discomfort to the person who must bathe ( shower, shampoo, brush teeth, clean or clip nails, etc.)

Resistance to many situations is probably more likely due to sensory struggles than it is due to deliberate disobedience or obstinancy, or naughtiness. If we are fighting your ‘agenda’ it is more likely due to the sensory distress that your plans for us will bring upon us.

Many autistic people are acutely sensitive to the clothing they must dress with. Seams on socks, cold prickly zippers, sticky labels with pointy sharp edges, garments that are stiff, scratchy, itchy, have seams, are fluttery/noisy, crinkly, too tight in the wrong places or too loose or flappy/flowy- can all cause the person wearing them pain, anxiety, distress, discomfort. No wonder those little kids can’t sit still!!!!!

Many hate the feel of a breeze or wind or water on their faces, arms, exposed legs or torso.
We may hate the pressure of hats or scarves or fear things across our face even momentarily. I remember how difficult it was to wear glasses as a child, even though I needed them desperately. I simply hated the feeling of pressure across my nose and resting on my cheeks and digging into my ears.

Sudden touch, touch of either light or heavy pressure, the feeling of being squeezed or tickled or pinched can send us over the roof with anxiety and fight/flight.
Some respond with relief to overall pressure such as hugs, wedging oneself between cushions or in any small place where we can give our bodies more pressure will be soothing.

On the other hand many will panic and feel trapped or overwhelmed. Trying to imagine Temple Grandin’s famous “squeeze/hug machine” and its use on myself gives me shudders and makes me feel panic.
Weighted blankets work for those who may seek sensory pressure, as will compression clothing or bandages…. the idea of any of those will send others ( like me) into fight/flight at even the thought.

Issues of touch can be tied into proprioception and struggles in processing what we feel. I must touch a wall or rail as I go up or down stairs to ensure I know where my body is on that staircase. I rely on feeling the pressure of my body weight with my feet firmly on each step before I proceed to the next one. If I walk from a room to another, my hand touches the furniture and the wall to make sure I am negotiating the space safely. I was repeatedly corrected to “keep your hands to yourself” or “keep my grubby hands off the wall” or furniture because those who cleaned behind me found my hand and finger prints annoying.
I have a poor sense of where I am in relation to my location in my world at any time and my sense of touch helps me keep upright and from crashing into things.

Texture of carpets, blankets, clothing, upholstered furniture all caused problems for me when I was quite small. I remember one house we lived when I was age 1 to almost 3, in which the living area included an ancient wool carpet. I refused to play on it repeatedly, much to my mother’s annoyance since I always moved to the edge where the cool smooth wood floor was not prickly and sharp. I was then in the traffic zone and underfoot. But I had solved the issue of the painful carpet. The sofa we had at that time was covered with tiny tufts of nylon and very bristly to the touch. This too caused me distress, and it was difficult to make me sit on that thing in a dress or a pair of shorts/sun suit… I didn’t mind when I had on the winter clothing which protected most of my skin from such insults. We had that sofa for years and I remember the color, the rows of bristles of the fabric, and the smell and the feel of it with no pleasure! I don’t believe others experienced that sofa the same way.

For me one of the worst things is sudden touch from strangers. Don’t get me wrong, I dislike touch from those close to me too, unless I have time to prepare for it.
( slow touch can do this too- I can’t stand the idea of massage… a stranger touching and rubbing, pressing, etc etc on my body is just unimaginable horror, even though I can imagine the horror part very well. )
I suspect that some of that comes from the association of sudden touch with motherly spankings and siblings’ torment such as tickling and pushing associated with aggressive treatment of my very early childhood right on through adulthood. “conditioned response”? But still the immediate first reactions to avoid touch could be because it is simply too alarming. I am afraid something I don’t understand is going to happen before I have any idea what that ‘something’ will be. Usually it was some sort of discomfort, so that sudden touch is first alarming. I don’t have time to prepare for whatever is coming. Maybe it is instinctive. I doubt many people welcome sudden touch.
My reaction is simply on the more extreme end of things. I startle very easily and am constantly hyper vigilant to avoid situations where I will be startled or grabbed, probably because of my hyper sensitive initial reactions as a child and the pleasure so many people over the years have taken in stimulating that response for their own purposes?

Texture of foods and the way they feel in ones mouth is something that is repeatedly discussed on the online forums I participate in. So many people avoid foods because of the texture, rather than the taste… too sticky, gummy, too hot or cold, too greasy, crunchy, stringy, slimy, gooey,chalky, chewy, lumpy, grainy, runny, chunky….

You name it, somebody somewhere in these forums have lists of foods they don’t like because of the way they feel in the mouth or going down one’s throat. It would be interesting to take a poll to see what foods repel the most of us and why. For many autistic people sensory issues can interfere with eating and cause dietary problems, failing to get proper nutrition due to avoidance of things disliked due to texture or feel. ( add the way things look or smell or tastes to be avoided and you can see how distress over the way a food feels can contribute to the struggle )

Understimulation of the sense of touch can also cause problems for us. Many seek pressure, seek sensations of hot, cold, or cause pain simply for the experience and possibly for endorphins released due to some pain inducing behaviors.
Self injury is one of those frequent autistic behaviors that are often not discussed on open adult forums. There is a deep sense of shame and self blame, fear and anxiety, and emotional pain surrounding the person who seeks sensory stimulation by self injury, and most are afraid to discuss this issue for good reasons. The social stigma of such damaging behaviors is real and strong, and I believe many are afraid to bring this issue to the forefront or ask for help because of shaming and blaming that goes along with it.
In the near future I will be discussing this issue involving the sense of touch and feel in greater detail.

Autism sensory processing

VISUAL INPUT what do you see?

I knew years ago that visual input was upsetting to me. Long before I knew about my autism, I knew I could not handle moving images or images of violence, suffering, or anything emotionally significant.
Seeing those sorts of images, whether moving or still give me emotional reactions that stay with me to re-live the feelings they evoke repeatedly and randomly, never knowing when thoughts and memories of those images will haunt me and torment me.

There is nothing I can do in most cases to alleviate the horror of these visual images once I have seen them. I learned as a pre-teen to avoid the nightly news broadcasts. The war in VietNam was the focus of almost every broadcast, the bloodier the better.
Repeated images of the Kennedy assassination when that happened, standards for what visual images were allowed on TV , newspapers, magazines, etc changed rapidly in the 1960’s and anything gruesome or horrifying was usually the opening story. “if it bleeds it leads”.
Not only do I struggle to understand moving visuals and always have a processing “lag”, whether it is something on the screen or a photo or actually unfolding ‘in real life”, but I find I am filled with a rush of emotions in the graphic visual input which seems as if it has no place to go. I experience horror, fear, angst, all the intended emotions meant to be drawn out by these images and the experience is immediately and continually emotionally overwhelming. I am battered emotionally and continually when I allow myself to be subjected to such images, whether real life images or scripted fiction being enacted. I choose to avoid this experience whenever possible.

I can not sort and file the experiences and tell myself “it is over” “It is just a movie” or use other filters which most people use when they have visual input. Those filters for me have never existed.

Add a sensitivity to sounds of suffering ( screaming, crying, pleading, anguish and pain) I find many tv or movie/video experiences too painful to subject myself to willingly.

Even in day to day life, I have always struggled with visual demonstrations of “how to do” from teachers, medical explanation videos, employers visually demonstrating how they wanted the work done, etc etc etc.
Give me a booklet with line drawings and printed explanations to illustrate these things and I will understand.
It all happens too quickly for me to sort the steps and expectations, listen to instructions and see what is being done… “are there any questions now?”
I always annoy the presenters of these things. Yes, there are plenty of questions.

It is as though I don’t have a working filter or a thermostat for the emotions aroused by seeing such things and hearing them.

My first memory of this effect is when I was taken to see Disney’s original Fantasia and my screams of fear at the skeletons in the bald mountain scene and the trouble Mickey Mouse was getting himself into (NO Mickey, NO NO!!!) and simply being “shushed” because it might annoy others around me. I was about 4 years old. I have been able to protect myself from such distress since I became old enough to choose not to participate in activities that are likely to lead to such distress.

It is said that visual processing is a strength for most autistic folk and that being able to visualize is our greatest ‘gift”. Not for me, and maybe not for many of us. I can not visualize a thing!
Don’t let generalizations lead you to forget autism is experienced on a spectrum, and not one of us is the same.
Is my reading considered a form of visual processing? Perhaps, but it is at my pace and although I rely on seeing the words to read them, my “inner brain” speaks the words and I have always thought my reading experience was more sound oriented (the sound of the words in my head to myself) than visual.

Perhaps my inability to visualize in my head has much to do with the processing of visual things. I do not recognize people out of context, this includes in movies when there is a change of scene and wardrobe. (who is that guy? Oh, that’s the hero of the story?) I am repeatedly made fun of because I recognize none of the movie stars, tv heroes or other popular characters. ( OK, I just realized I do still recognize Mickey).
I do recognize voices after listening to them just a few times. I surprise my tv watching husband when I announce that the voice belongs to X actor or actress… I am usually right. Can’t recognize a face to save my soul, but give me a voice.

Sometimes I imagine myself in a nursing home at some point (one out of 3 people eventually spends at least a month in a care home before end of life) and can only be horrified thinking about the managed use of the common room several times a day , and me being forced to listen to dozens of people, a blaring music intercom and a TV turned up to accommodate those who are hard of hearing. If I am unfortunate enough to be unable to move myself, I could be plunked down somewhere facing a TV with horrible images, screaming and crying, in a room full of din and things I would never choose to see, people I would ordinarily hide from, and subjected repeatedly to this…. There are no ways to describe the resulting misery. Perhaps you can imagine for yourself.

Edited a few days later to add more content.
Visual processing issues can also cause much distress in everyday living. One often reported distressor is light that is too bright, light that flickers, light that is the wrong color or too direct, too focused, too diffused. Think of all the ways we see light in our day. I get motion sick due to the rapid changes in light/flicker effect/ inability to process moving images. I can get sick in a car, or I will get sick watching any rapidly moving images on TV, Movies, Videos, and video games. I always do better in a vehicle when I am driving, perhaps because I can correct the motion of the vehicle and affect it in a direct way, or because I am more in tune with the motions of braking, turning, stopping, slowing down or speeding up and can prepare myself for such things and correct for them. Wearing very dark wrap around sunglasses seems to help keep shadow flickers from affecting particularly my peripheral vision, and I am sick a lot less now that I finally learned that trick.

Visual struggles and issues with bright light, colors, patterns, and shadows can cause much distress for those unwillingly subjected to certain conditions.
In many cases, those of us who are prone to seizures (about 30 to 60 percent of autistic people, depending on who is reporting the issue) will react to flicker and rapidly changing visual input by seizing.
Reports of meltdowns caused by the flicker of a fan throwing shadows repeatedly across a room, motion observed through a window and resulting reflected light changes, etc. are frequent. The affected person might not even recognize what is distressing them.
If you experience distress when you are in certain situations you might be able to seek out causes when you recognize problems with light and visual processing. Many autistic people wear sunglasses or colored lenses which seem to help change how we process visual input.

Autism and Interoception

How are you feeling?

Have you ever heard of interoception?
This a sensory function which is still being described, and there is still some disagreement over what its definition should include.

Interoception is the sense of your inner self which includes the ability to feel what is going on inside you.

The initial definitions were about giving a person ability to recognize inner physical symptoms of needs: when you felt hungry, thirsty, needed to go to the bathroom, felt pain or discomfort in your internal workings.

The definition has been refined over time and using recent studies now includes also your emotional status.

Studies are in the initial stages but tend toward showing that neurological ties to the inner body are the same that are used for ‘feeling’ emotions, and that yes, emotions are tied to physical feelings as well.

We all know that, if we think about it. Tension headaches, anxiety stomach aches, the burning that comes with anger and the churning gut of distress, and how do you suppose the term ‘heartache’ was coined?

Right now there is debate over which comes first, the physical sensations or the emotional processes involved in recognizing ones “feelings”. Some scientists are saying that the physical responses are the initial ones which cause us to then recognize the emotions behind them.

I think the jury is still out on that idea, but it is interesting to think about the implications.

Interoception as it is described today is related to recognizing physical and emotional status of our inner selves. It is the neurological sense that tells us ‘how we feel’ in the most literal way.

How is this likely to be tied to autism?

Interoception is believed to exist because of human neurology. It is being defined as another sense.
We are equipped with an internal monitor through a network of nerves which sense and report “how we feel”.

Autism being a function of neurology and strongly tied to sensory processing, can show its effects in any part of the human neurological system.
Many autistic people are not good at recognizing when they are hungry, thirsty, tired, whether their bladder is full, and on and on.
We are notoriously poor at sorting our emotions as well.
All of these issues are related to interoception because they are all issues of sensory processing within us.

I will use imaginary Sally as an example.
Sally was late to be toilet trained, she simply was not able to tell when she ‘had to go”. She often wet the bed. Her body did not wake her when her bladder was full because it did not recognize that discomfort.
Sally had a ruptured appendix when she was 25, and did not recognize the abdominal ache, which she reported as vague and undefined. She finally had uncontrollable vomiting which drove her to the emergency room where she was barely in time for her life to be saved by immediate surgery.
Sally will get so involved in a project that she forgets to eat, and when she finally does eat, she does not know when to stop, often getting sick from overeating.
She is known for her volatile temper and her extreme emotional outbusts.
All those struggles are likely to have their base in processing input from her interoceptive system.

Do you have signs of interoceptive struggles in your own life?