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As acknowledged in the diagnostic criteria, autistic individuals will experience some level of sensory processing difference from that which is perceived as typical, with a suggestion that adverse sensory reactions occur in at least 65-80% (Tavassoli et al., 2016). It is now widely accepted that an autistic individual may move between hyper-sensitive (over- stimulation) and hypo-sensitive (under-stimulation) responses to environmental stimuli (Tavassoli et al., 2014, Bogdashina, 2016), this can affect all senses; visual, auditory, taste, smell and touch. This altered sensory processing also involves vestibular systems, controlling balance and eye movement, and proprioceptive sensation that allows

awareness of the position and movement of the body (Cermak et al., 2010, Green and Ben-Sasson, 2010, Wigham et al., 2015a, Haigh, 2017). An individual with such sensory processing features is likely to struggle to filter and modulate incoming stimuli, resulting in atypical physical experience and sensory perception. The profile of sensory distortion or different attunement will differ for each autistic individual (Baranek et al., 2014, Kirby et al., 2015, Dawson and Watling, 2000, Schaaf et al., 2011). The picture of children covering their ears has become synonymous with autism (NAS, 2019); autistics may be unable to tolerate sounds such as loud voices, traffic noise or radios in social environments including home (Stewart et al., 2016). Visual sensitivity may result in the need for sunglasses or baseball style caps to avoid bright lights. An autistic person may recoil from touch or alternatively present sensory seeking behaviours, frequently resulting in autistic children and young people being intolerant of hugs, biting and chewing objects and avoiding certain food textures. Altered proprioceptive and vestibular feedback affects gross and fine motor

skills, influencing the ability to engage in physical activity; movement can become more erratic or awkward, making access to some physical play and sport more challenging (Nazarali et al., 2009, Kurtz, 2008). Autistics may also find it difficult to feel their body in space resulting in disorientation and seeking movement or deep pressure to regulate their body. Autistic authors speak of the inability to filter or prioritise incoming stimuli resulting in competing sensory sensations (Gerland, 2012, Bestbier and Williams, 2017, Grandin, 2017, Grandin, 2014).

The difficulty in processing and coping with sensory stimulus results in a number of behaviours which may significantly impact family life (Schaaf et al., 2011), and not least, have the potential to cause significant distress to an autistic young person, this in turn may contribute to stress and tensions in family engagement (Hastings, 2002, Schaaf et al., 2011, Ben-Sasson et al., 2013). Schaaf et al. (2011) provide a qualitative

phenomenological study including four families of children aged 8-12 with autism.

Acknowledging high rates of sensory-related behaviours, the study explores the impact in these four families. There is a strong indication of the pervasive impact of the sensory processing difficulties in how families both experience and manage their lives around these behaviours. Whilst families demonstrate respect and an understanding of the resulting restrictive and repetitive behaviours, they also provide a strong sense of the impact within and beyond home environments. The increased and unpredictable stimuli of the social environment and the physical world can be so overwhelming for autistic children that this can have a marked impact on parents and siblings and their ability to engage in shared activities. Parents described numerous strategies they had developed to begin to address these behaviours, all of which would require long-term consistency, patience and

differently to their non-autistic peers. Research has increasingly recognised the strong relationship between sensory and social features of ASD (Thye et al., 2018). Autistic co- author Lucy Blackman (in Biklen and Attfield, 2005) asks; “If one hears the subtle sounds of speech out of order, which I do, how does one process language?” (p. 146).

The atypical cortical structure in the autistic brain is suggested to result in monotropic processing (Murray et al., 2005) this is the ability to only process one sphere of attention or stimulation at a time. In a typical environment there will be multiple and competing sensory stimuli, where an autistic person is unable to filter this stimuli, the result is frequently an assault on the senses which can overwhelm a person’s processing capacity (Caldwell, 2014). Frugone (in Biklen and Attfield, 2005 p. 266) describes that he “…becomes wooden immediately upon thinking about the act of touching something; it is as if the thought of the action renders him a statue” other individuals have described how the need to focus on processing receptive or expressive language can render other processing inert (Murray et al., 2005, Biklen and Attfield, 2005, Higashida, 2017). Caldwell (2014) and Goldschmidt (2017) also observe the heightened sensitivity which can result not only in discomfort and intolerance of the offending stimuli, but also in pain. May (2019a) suggests that many autistic people experience the sensory sensitivities noted in the DSM-5 as pain, hence the ‘extreme distress’. Growing awareness and research around sensory differences and a young person’s sensory experience of the physical world, informs our understanding of the challenges they face and many of the behaviours they present and the implications for communicative interactions (Wigham et al., 2015a, Stewart et al., 2016, Liss et al., 2008, Liss et al., 2006).

Autistic authors more recently have shared their sensory experiences and highlighted the importance of this sensory interaction with their environment as a meaningful

communicative interaction; a communicative interaction at a non-verbal sensory level. Baggs (2007) and Rubin (2018) both provide a personal insight to their interactions with the tactile environment through sensory interaction with the flow of water. They explain that the rhythm and sensations they experience within their sensory interactions with water offer stimulus and feedback, therefore creating a dialogue of sensory interaction. These authors present as non-verbal, as such societal perception is that they are lacking in communicative ability; that they are asocial. However, these subtle glimpses into their sensation driven interactions that they share with us in their writing, speak of other dialogues than those that would be typically perceived as communicative. Considering Yergeau’s perspective (2018), it could be argued that the rich and complex narrative that both Baggs and Rubin offer through augmented communication troubles or ‘queers’ our understanding of what is communication, suggesting “a sociality of things” (Yergeau, 2018, p.37) and experienced through sensory engagement. This concept of things being

engaged in our communitive encounters begins to suggest of the part that non-human factors and the physical environment play in our communicative interactions and that meaningful communicative or dyadic interactions are not exclusively human to human but also engage material-non-human other, an internal or intra-active sensory communication experience (Barad, 2007). Such increasing awareness of the central role of sensory stimulation and engagement in autistic experience draws new questions relating to typical understanding of communication, challenging the narrow perspectives by which traditional research and literature understands and explores communication in autism (Davidson and Orsini, 2013, Milton, 2014, Baggs, 2007).