What is a sensory overload for an autistic person? How does it affect them and their ability to function?

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I understand that they get them but what happens exactly to them?

In: Biology

29 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The best I can explain it is imagine something significant happened to you, you start to tell someone you love and then the phone rings, you ignore it to finish your conversation, as it is important, but then the oven goes off. You ignore, slightly irritated but quickly find place back in your conversation. As you start, your children race through the room, start a scuffle, knocking things about, clattering and clunking, your partner walks into the kitchen and starts preparing themselves a meal and digging into the cutlery drawer.
Your door bell goes off, the phone starts ringing again and someone has left the tap running full blast.
You don’t want to talk or hear. You don’t care about finishing your story, you just want to get back to a state and environment where having a quiet conversation is even possible.
It feels like that and it can happen for almost no reason unlike the examples I’ve given.

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