Sensory Differences: Research at IMFAR
Sensory processing is the topic of a presentation at the May 20089 IMFAR conference (International Meeting for Autism Research), as well as of a number of poster presentations. Here’s the description for a segment (#148 in the Program Book) on “Sensory Processing:The Interface of Research and Clinical Practice”:
Sensory differences are commonly reported in people with autism. Often they are among the most problematic symptoms. This symposium will examine the phenomenon of sensory symptomatology, the research methodology used to characterize and explain the observed behaviors, and the treatments that are being used in the community. A translational approach will be emphasized to inform both basic researchers and clinicians on future avenues of study.
Papers will look at how to characterize sensory processing differences in autistic individuals; interventions; neural mechanisms; and neuropsychological perspectives.
When Charlie was just diagnosed, we didn’t think he had any sensory issues. I rather think, now, that we just did not know what we were looking for. The more I’ve learned about sensory processing (and reading books by autistic authors like Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay have been invaluable), the more I’ve seen that, yes, Charlie indeed has sensory processing differences and that his difficulty at telling us about these and explaining what they feel like may well lead to various sorts of outbursts and general unhappiness. The other day, I accidentally dropped my (metal) traveling coffee mug on the kitchen counter and Charlie cried out in serious pain and kept crying for some twenty minutes. After years of indifference to me vacuuming, I now tell him that I’m turning on the dustbuster and he puts his hands over his ears, tucks down his head, and steals random glances at me working on the crumbs left from someone’s snack. The key thing is that I give him advance notice about the loud sounds of the vacuum.
Charlie (according to my “research,” such as it is) has learned and is learning his own strategies for dealing with all that noise from the likes of me.
Tags: anxiety, asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, coffee mug, disabilities blog, disability, dustbuster, Education, Sensory, Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay, vacuumRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Science, Sensory, clothes
22 opinions for Sensory Differences: Research at IMFAR
laurentius-rex
Nov 5, 2008 at 8:17 pm
You know all this fancy IMFAR scientists don’t really have a clue, because they do not have the personal experience of it, the whole richness of the sensory differences.
I actually do think that they cannot properly come up with a thery because they are cognitively challenged so far as that goes.
One cannot think outside of the box one is put in, and these poor guys and gals, actually are like a radio that can only pick up a few frequencies, not a lot of good beyond that.
They can’t help it of course, it is a disability :)
laurentius-rex
Nov 5, 2008 at 8:22 pm
You know you don’t always observe a great deal do you?
My parents were well aware that I was highly sensitive to a variety of stimuli.
They did not need a book or a scientist to tell them, it was perfectly obvious that in the presence of certain things I would freak out.
Cliff
Nov 5, 2008 at 9:01 pm
“You know you don’t always observe a great deal do you?
My parents were well aware that I was highly sensitive to a variety of stimuli.
They did not need a book or a scientist to tell them, it was perfectly obvious that in the presence of certain things I would freak out.”
That would presume a homogeneity in response, which really can’t be made.
I’m have to admit, approaching research for sensory issues has me baffled. There’s a huge linguistic barrier to overcome in describing sensory differences, and you essentially have to rely on some form of a behavioral model. I mean, how else would you know empirically a single thing? And yet that’s problematic for the assumptions one might make. I’ve always found myself looking at the works of other autistic authors and not really being sure how to approach their writings on sensory differences, because most frequently it is framed by an outside source as much as by the individual. And the studies seem to jump loosely from one conclusion without really tackling the assumptions about perception. I’m trying to remember exactly what I reading about Tito, actually, and wondering how a certain assumption came about, though I’m pretty sure it was how a certain sensory difference could be presumed prior to the means to interpret it.
I think the easy way to say it, though, is ‘I see issues’.
Cliff
Alli
Nov 5, 2008 at 9:47 pm
sensory issues are an ongoing battle for us, battling for understanding and action from the school takes up a lot of my energy, too often they want Alec to mould into a certain remedy to suit them not to suit him and it just doesn’t work and leaves him anxious and stressed.
Noise, light, colours and food all do it, he is down to about 6 food choices now
Michelle Dawson
Nov 5, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Kristina wrote: “Sensory processing is the topic of a presentation at the May 2009 IMFAR conference…”
“Sensory Processing: The Interface of Research and Clinical Practice” was topic of an invited educational symposium at IMFAR 2008, which took place last May in London.
As yet, there is no publicly available information about the program for IMFAR 2009, which will take place next May in Chicago.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 5, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Thanks for the correction—–
laurentius-rex
Nov 6, 2008 at 5:23 am
That explains why a lot of this stuff is familiar to me like a repeating breakfast.
passionlessDrone
Nov 6, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Hello friends -
I just saw a link wherein some folks are organizing a petition to add sensory processing problems to the DSM-V for autism. I for one, think this is a great idea and have submitted my name.
209.169.7.42/dsmv.html
I am attempting a sort of abbreviated URL here to avoid the spam filter. spdfoundation dot net for more.
OK!
- pD
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 6, 2008 at 10:41 pm
@pD, here’s the URL again:
http://209.169.7.42/dsmv.html
David L.
Nov 7, 2008 at 1:30 am
Lately, we have been reading about how autistics have “eagle” vision, able to resolve fine details that typical people cannot. Given that the sample size was only 15 autistics, I have to wonder if this will hold up under greater scrutiny. My vision doesn’t seem to be any better than anyone else’s, so if this finding pans out, it could even be used to rule out me having autism. It would be great if an objective criterion for autism existed.
When I first read about autistic vision, my first thought was that this must be an April fool’s joke.
laurentius-rex
Nov 7, 2008 at 5:37 am
Well this would be a perfect example of a self limiting paradigm, a system that defines itself, for if you were to exclude from the diagnosis all people who did not have eagle eye vision irrespective of any other autistic traits, 100% of autistics would then ipso facto have eagle eye vision.
This is partly the problem of cherry picking to create a watertight diagnosis.
In order to examine the prevalence of a new criterion, one has to effectively diagnose in it’s absence in the first place. Hey we are back to the old Godel incompleteness therems again.
Storkdok
Nov 8, 2008 at 8:16 am
@l-rex, Cliff and Michelle
I was wondering if you had read Olga Bogdashina’s book “Sensory Perceptual Issues in Autism and Asperger Syndrome: Different Sensory Experiences, Different Perceptual Worlds” and what you thought of it?
Storkdok
Nov 8, 2008 at 8:17 am
Here is the link, if it makes it through the filter
http://www.amazon.com/Sensory-Perceptual-Issues-Asperger-Syndrome/dp/1843101661/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226146507&sr=8-2
laurentius-rex
Nov 8, 2008 at 10:53 am
Yes I know Olga, and have read her book.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 8, 2008 at 11:14 am
Eagle vision? With Charlie, often seems more that he hyper-focuses on a few things (or one thing) and not on everything else around it……
Cliff
Nov 8, 2008 at 11:43 am
I, admittedly, haven’t read Olga. Will need to pick that up. Though I was able to get enough of a sample to at least ask a question about her; does she, throughout the book, put sensory perception as prior to social conditioning? Or was the sample I had simply not large enough?
Cliff
donald savitz
Nov 8, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Just something to set the hole resarch back about another 10 to 14 years, because every person wil move there to prove that who did the study was wrong. Good luck!!!
Cliff
Nov 8, 2008 at 12:16 pm
“Just something to set the hole research back about another 10 to 14 years, because every person will move there to prove that who did the study was wrong. Good luck!!!”
Well, that would be a serious waste of time. The study has enough serious flaws to make moving to the West Coast for the entire purpose of “disproving” this study. In a fashion like moving to the North Pole to disprove Santa Claus.
Cliff
Storkdok
Nov 8, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Cliff,
It has been a few years since I read her book, and I lent it to someone who has moved away (my son’s ST, to George Washington University where she works now) so I can’t reread it to answer your question. I liked that it took the different senses perceptions and explained each one and then took the different perceptions of different autistics and discussed them. I should probably reread it, I usually get more information each time I reread a book after a few years.
Anyway, I was just wondering what you and l-rex and Michelle and anyone else in this neurodiverse world might think about it. Does it accurately represent some of the sensory differences? Is it a good book that would accurately help me to understand these differences?
It is so hard for me, I have always had a hard time with noises, since I was a baby (according to my mother) I hear things no one else does (no, not voices!), like the security systems in malls, a high pitched horrible sound that has made me avoid malls as much as I could since I was a child. I felt overwhelmed by noise growing up in southern CA. My life has been infinitely better since moving to the country. My son is very sensitive with his hearing.
Because of this I want to learn more about all the senses. The more I understand, the better I can understand my son and help him.
Cliff
Nov 8, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Well, I haven’t read all of the book (I only read a sample that I was able to acquire online, so I can only take from the implications of the introduction and the second chapter), but from what I have read from Dr. Bogdashina, I have a suspicion that she makes the same mistake as many in discussing sensory experiences and described the sensory experiences as something that is separate in categorical form from fundamental differences in social mechanisms as described by autistics (in this case, suggesting that the former possibly construes the latter). I think there’s a mistake out here; people underestimate how much of what we perceive has some social, indicative mechanism to it. I think one actually might draw some interesting conclusions about autism from the described differences in perception that are seen across different environments to autism, and vice versa. Or, as another example, looking at how perception can be trained to fundamentally pick up and see different things (like observational training that police officers go through). Even to me, there has been a lot in learning, fundamentally, how to shift through sensory information and put in different contexts, largely taking from social cues of other individuals entirely through body language, or behind putting specific rationales behind certain kinds of stimuli (say, when a tactile stimuli corresponds to the way that my clothes hang). It’s a painstaking process, but I have noticed I have been able to pick up more discreet stimul that people normally could that or not be overwhelmed by some that I was entirely by before (though it’s hardly an on/off switch), at a time, I couldn’t at all, entirely as a mechanism of knowing when and to what people seem to be reacting to.
But I don’t have enough of the book to note for entirety all of the arguments, or to see if my perceptions of the introductory argument were off (since the point in question, like much in dealing in how people talk about sensory perception, has been presumed in the text, somewhere). But that’s my suspicion based off of what I read and my experience with such works, and my criticism therein. But I would have to defer to Laurentius, who has read it.
Cliff
Cliff
Nov 8, 2008 at 1:43 pm
“I think one actually might draw some interesting conclusions about autism from the described differences in perception that are seen across different environments to autism”
Hate when I qualify something twice in writing like that in writing, and don’t remember I did the first time. That should be “I think one might actually draw some interesting conclusions about autism from the described differences seen across different environments”. Amongst other minor clumsy mistakes in my long posts that I tend toward oh so much.
Cliff
Storkdok
Nov 8, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Thank you, Cliff, I appreciate your replies! I would love to hear what Laurentius thinks about it, too! (hint hint!)
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