Dr Olga Bogdashina, author, practitioner and lecturer gives her Top 5 Tips for managing sensory differences for autistic people. This article aims to provide an  overview of practical tips for professionals when working with autistic people who have sensory differences.

A brief introduction to sensory processing differences

There is a continuum of sensory perceptual differences for autistic people. Some children have significant sensory differences while others less so. Understanding each autistic child’s distinct sensory differences is essential to effectively teach and support them.

Often autistic children are unable to cope with the demands of the world they are not equipped to deal with, this can result in certain distressed behaviours, such as self-injury, aggression, avoidance, rigidity, high anxiety, and panic attacks.

Top 5 Tips

1. Protect from sensory overload

Many autistic people are very vulnerable to sensory overload. They may become overloaded in situations that wouldn’t bother other people. Overload happens when autistic people find it difficult to process certain sensory sensations – such as loud music or bright lights.

Learning to recognise sensory overload is very important. It is better to prevent it than to ‘deal with the consequences’. As soon as you notice early signs of becoming overloaded with sensory differences (which are different for different individuals), stop activity and provide time and space to recover, for example, invite the person to get into a quiet place or outside. It is useful to teach the individual how to recognise the internal signs of the overload, and ask for help or use different strategies, for example, relaxation.  

2. Create a ‘sensorily safe’ environment

The sensory environment is very important for autistic people. Autistic people can find it difficult to adjust to sensory assaults other people accept as normal. If we accommodate it and try to ‘keep it clean’ in order to meet their needs, it can make navigating the world easier. With sensory needs met, stress and anxiety can be lowered. 

Many 'behaviours' that interfere with learning and social interaction are, in fact, protective or sensory defensive responses of the person to ‘sensory pollution’ in the environment.  It is impossible for children to learn if they are bombarded with painful and confusing stimuli.

• Monitor a number of simultaneous stimuli, reduce all irrelevant stimuli.
• Structure and routines make the environment predictable and easier to control. Routine and rituals help to facilitate understanding of what is going on and what is going to happen next.
• Introduce any change slowly and always explain beforehand what is happening differently and why.

3. Hypersensitivity

• Identify which stimuli the child finds difficult and either reduce or eliminate them (for example, use natural lighting instead of fluorescent lights) or, if impossible, provide the child with ‘sensory aids’ (tinted glasses, earplugs, etc...)
• Be aware of the colours and patterns of the clothes you are wearing and your perfume
• Remember, what we think is enjoyable (for example, fireworks) may be fearful or overwhelming to an autistic child
• Always warn a child about the possibility of the stimulus they are fearful of and show the source of it. Often it is not the stimulus itself that can trigger but rather the inability to control or predict it.
• Depending on the sensitivity, try to desensitise the child’s ability to tolerate the stimuli via sensory diets.

4. Work with, and not against it

Autistic people seem to develop (voluntarily or involuntarily) the ability to control their awareness of incoming sensory stimuli in order to survive in the world bombarding them with extraneous information.

Mono-processing (using one sense at a time):

• A person with mono-processing may have problems with multiple stimuli. Find out which channel ‘is open’ at the moment and reduce all irrelevant stimuli.
• Always present information in the person’s preferred modality/sense. If you are not sure what it is or which sense ‘is on’ at the moment (in the case of fluctuation), use multi-sensory presentation and watch which sense ‘works’. Remember, though, that these channels could switch.
• Some autistic people actually hear and understand) you better when they are not looking at you. Some autistic people seem to be hypersensitive when they are approached directly by other people. For some, if they are looked directly, they may feel it as ‘a touch’ – a sort of ‘distant touching’ with actual experience.
• Autistic people can understand things better by attending to them directly, for example, by looking or listening periphery (such as out of the corner of one’s eye or by looking at or listening to something else). The same is true for other senses if they are hypersensitives: indirect perception of smell or touch are often defensive mechanisms to avoid overload.
• Never force eye contact.
• When hypersensitivity of the affected sense is addressed and lessened, the direct perception becomes easier.

5. Adjust the way you interact with the child

Autistic people can learn better with concrete information, whether it is visual, auditory, tactile, etc...

Let the person use their preferred ways to explore the world. In many ways ‘autistic perception’ is superior to that of non-autistics. Autistic individuals with their heightened senses often can appreciate colours, sounds, textures, smells, tastes to a much higher degree than people around them. This should be nurtured and not ignored, as it is sadly often the case.

Now, when we know that autistic individuals have problems with verbal information, there is a great emphasis on using pictures to help. However, not all autistic people are ‘visual thinkers’. That is why, it is important to choose the methods to match the child’s preferred approach, for example, tactile aids for ‘tactile thinkers’, etc...

• To identify the preferred interaction style for the person – direct or indirect communication.
• To identify the preferred sensory channel used by the child and to select the preferred communication approach – not all autistic children are visual thinkers/think in pictures.

Give time to process information and respond. Be aware that autistic people often require more time that others to process and move between different sensory stimuli and can find it extremely difficult to follow rapidly changing social instructions.

These top 5 tips are meant only as a very general guide to what to think about.

Further reading

• Grandin, T. The Way I See It. Future Horizons. (2008)
• Williams, D. Autism: An Inside-Out Approach. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. (1996)
• Bogdashina, O. Sensory Perceptual Issues in Autism and Asperger Syndrome. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. (2003)