Understanding the sensing and perceptual world of autistic people is central to understanding autism.

Everyone has eight sensing systems: the first five being the familiar sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. These five give us information about the world outside our bodies. Three internal sensing systems give us information from inside our bodies – our vestibular system (coordinating movement with balance), proprioception (awareness of position and movement of the body) and interoception (knowing our internal state including feelings, temperature, pain, hunger and thirst). Although not all the external senses are equally affected by the physical environment, we consider them all – as they collectively add to the ‘sensory load’ that many autistic people often experience. Any sensory input needs to be processed and can reduce the capacity to manage and process other things.

As many autistic people process one thing at a time, sensory stimulation can stack up. As the brain’s highways become congested, there are repercussions throughout the entire neural network. This can lead to headaches, nausea and the fight and flight response, this is what causes many meltdowns and shutdowns.

Considering and meeting the sensory needs of autistic people in housing | Local Government Association

Imagine having no choice but to zoom in on life.

Perpetual defense mode – the silent wave

“Patterns are a real problem for me. I get absorbed by them – they take all my focus and it’s really distressing. When I’m overloaded sound and visuals can become too intense. My ability to manage fluctuates depending on how overloaded I am. When I’m overloaded, I can’t manage visual clutter, things on mantelpieces and walls, open fires, pattered carpets or clocks ticking. These are all things that would seem fine on a good day but become too much.”
“I have massive sensory sensitivity. Especially to light and sound. My sensitivity fluctuates depending on how overloaded I am. If I’m not overloaded, then I can tolerate a lot more.”

Supporting Autistic Flourishing at Home and Beyond – Alexis Quinn artwork – NDTi

The divergent ways in which we process the world around us can also leave us fatigued and sapped of energy, as autistic people have “higher perceptual capacity” than our neurotypical counterparts, meaning that we process greater volumes of information from our environment. Autistic people commonly use the concept of ‘spoon theory‘ to conceptualize this experience of having limited energy resources. Initially theorized in the context of chronic illness, spoon theory can be explained as every task and activity (enjoyable or otherwise) requiring a certain number of ‘spoons’. Most people start their day with such an abundance of spoons that they can do whatever they choose, and rarely run low. We autistic folk start with a limited number of spoons, and when those spoons run dangerously low, we need to step back, rest, engage in self-care, and wait for our spoons to replenish.

Doing More by Doing Less: Reducing Autistic Burnout | Psychology Today

Thus, all features of autism (social interaction impairments, language and communication problems, cognitive functioning, repetitive behaviours, etc.) can be seen as rooted in sensory overload experienced by autistic individuals. Autistic individuals perceive, feel and remember too much. Faced with a bombarding, confusing, baffling and often painful environment, autistic infants withdraw into their own world by shutting down their sensory systems.

Sensory Perceptual Issues in Autism and Asperger Syndrome: Different Sensory Experiences – Different Perceptual Worlds

The long-term effects of misunderstanding or mislabeling sensory trauma can be catastrophic.

How sensory trauma affects how we grow develop and learn

The interconnectedness between sensory input, emotions, energy level, ongoing task and how you manage everything you have to do alongside coping with sometimes overwhelming sensory input is an experience that many autistic people are familiar with. Understanding just how much the sensory world can impact how anxious you feel, how well you can communicate, how able to do a food shop or even just enter a space is an important piece of understanding to build up. Without this understanding, from the perspective of autistic people, many may not understand how all-consuming the sensory environment can be for some and for others it is a way of being able to interact that releases anxiety and tension. Interacting with the sensory world through sensory seeking behaviours is strongly associated with stimming (self-stimulatory behaviour that helps self-regulation) which is often a really positive (as long as no one is getting hurt) way of expression that can encompass happiness, anxiety, distress and so much more.

Autistic sensory experiences, in our own words — Sarah O’Brien

My earliest, most powerful memories are sensory. Of things feeling chaotic. Of being terrified of loud noises. Of being terrified of a lot of foods. Of not being listened to in those experiences and then being deemed to be problematic for fighting for my right not to be traumatised. These are my earliest memories. Feelings of social difference didn’t arise until later. It is hard to learn functional social skills when you are having to fight all the time to be heard. Ditto, it is hard to learn empathy when you are not seeing it. And I feel that, in being labelled as having this triad of deficits, I am in a sense being re-traumatised in still not having my understanding of the world recognised.

What I understand autism to be – Spectrumy