Autism Soccer: Frontiers of the mind, and how autistic children challenge this notion

Autistic children often provide people with unique insight for situations, helping create a broader understanding of the human mind.

Sensory alterations in children with autism may be due to a deficit or an oversensitivity.

Some sensations that are normal for others can be presented in children with autism with an intolerable intensity, preventing further normal activity. It’s important to assess vision and hearing whenever an ASD is detected, to correct possible deficits that would interfere even more in their neurodevelopment.

Sensory disturbance that many children with ASD have influences behavior

In most children, these alterations can diminish or even completely disappear when they reach the stage of adulthood, as they become accustomed or simply improve.

Auditory perception

Autism and noise

For children with ASD, certain sounds are unbearable.

Phone ring, the school bell, fireworks; they are disturbing for them.
High humidity like appliances, hair dryer, blender, garden trimmer.
External sounds, accents in shopping centers, parties.

Faced with these noises mentioned above, children often react with irritability, excessive fear and may become isolated. Is important to know the auditory sensitivity of the child, because this allows us to recognize the origin of these behaviors and so help the children. Whenever the child can be anticipated the appearance of the noise will reduce his discomfort and anxiety.

Visual sensitivity

Some children often perceive specific objects that are distorted or fragmented. For others, things like bright lights seem to dance around them. They may refuse to enter a place. These distortions and visual overloads make children focus on detail instead of the whole object, to try to reduce their discomfort with the stimulus.

Tactile sensory alteration

Some children have diminished tactile alterations, that’s why they need a high-intensity stimulus to perceive. For example, they embrace with excessive force because they don’t notice the stimulus. Sometimes they can hurt themselves to perceive their body because they are insensitive to pain.

However, if the sensitivity is of a high level, they reject contact with other people, comb their hair, brush their teeth. It can be painful for them and undoubtedly affects their interpersonal relationships.

Food, taste, and smell

Hypersensitivity to taste is common in children with ASD, some flavors can be very strong and unpleasant food textures. In these cases, feeding turns out to be a problem for the child, causing nutritional deficiencies.

When they perceive strong smells, they refuse to enter places that seem deodorized to others, tantrums appear or refuse to enter specific places.

It’s extremely important to know the child well and in detail to have a better understanding of him/her. Your behavior will always have an important reason behind the child’s well-being. Knowing the sensory alterations that may be present in the autistic spectrum will help you a lot.