Monday, May 28, 2007

That hurts

One of the strongly supported aspects of ASD is that people affected by it either do not or can not properly filter sensory input. The conversation across the room and the TV commercial and the hum of the lights and the car driving by outside are all treated by your brain exactly the same way as your parent shouting "No, HOT!" when you're reaching for the stove.

We've observed with Connor that loud noises are painful. Literally painful: he'll run and cover his ears and curl up into a miserable crying ball to try and get away from them.

When people get really, truly, angry, they try to hurt what makes them angry; it's a fairly basic human psychological/physiological reaction. From kicking and hitting, all the way up the range to saying deliberately harmful things.

Whenever Connor gets really really mad, he covers his ears and screams at you.

James

Labels: living with autism

1 Comments:

Dan said...: Interesting, I had never heard of that particular facet of ASD before. I find it particularly intriguing because I suffer from the same inability to focus on any given sound though the loud noises don't seem to inflict the same level of physical pain on me.

Have your sources on ASD parenting given any suggestions on how to work with this other than avoiding background noise? It is one of my biggest frustrations and I'm up for trying new ways to cope with it.

-Dan; 2:03 PM