Published on 12, July, 2020
This might be one for the Moderators to look into, but I wonder if others have insight on this.
I've had several conversations recently with professionals dealing with adults on the spectrum who've just spouted the triad of impairments, or who've said its all in the triad of impairments.
With all the literature on theories about autism and various interpretations, and approaches to treatment, I could quite understand professionals looking for the easiest synthesis to hand. But what is to hand? Is it just too easy to read up on the triad and related summaries? Or is there nothing else to hand for professionals to use.
The Triad of Impairments, as far as I can see, is of no more value than for diagnosing children. It has little relevance to the everyday lives and experiences of adults, and is hardly appropriate to helping professionals understand adult needs.
It doesn't explain a lot of issues facing adults.
But just what are the main texts used by professionals? And how useful are these texts for supporting adults?
Some years back I invested in a number of the more academic reference books I thought would help me understand things better. One of these was Olga Bogdashina "Sensory Perceptual Issues in Autism and Asperger Syndrome - Different Sensory Experiences, Different Perceptual Worlds" (Jessica Kingsley Publ 2003.)
Firs of all it didn't help much and just fills more bookshelf space. That's not in itself a criticism as many academic texts have a specialist audience and can be daunting to the lay reader. But I had hoped it would give me some answers.
Chapter 3 lists "Possible Sensory Experiences in Autism". It covers:
Literal perception; Hypersensitivity and/or Hyposensitivity; Inconsistency of perception (fluctuation); Fragmented perception (perception 'in bits', stimulus overselectivity); distorted perception; sensory agnosia (difficulty interpreting a sense), delayed perception (delayed processing); vulnerability to sensory overload.
Of these the only bits dealing with "sensory overload" and the hyper/hypo and vulnerability to sensory overload sections. The former is a paragraph or so on each of hypervision, hypertaste/hypersmell, hypertactility, vestibular hypersensitivity and proprioceptive hypersensitivity. Most of this was from Temple Grandin's writings over 3.5 pages, then a table and 4.5 pages of examples, such as Marc Fleisher's impending falling ruler. Its not bad stuff, just not ground breakling understanding of what happens - I've read the same stuff in many other books. The professional is drawing on fairly old examples.
Vulnerability to sensory overload is just three pages, mostly from Donna Williams 1996. I don't disagree with the content, just I hoped for more understanding.
There's a chapter on cognitive styles - whether you are visual or numbers orientated, then a chapter on other sensory issues such as synaesthesia, prosopagnosia, central auditory processing disorder, scotopic sensory syndrome, sensory integration/dysfunction disorder.
This is the sort of book a professional will pull of the shelf looking for answers.
But it wont help the professional understand why housing that is thin walled and close together, which is the kind of social housing that people on the spectrum have to take, is uncomfortable. Or why many work places are difficult.
It's not about understanding people's everyday needs. There is an acute lack of literature on what sensory overload actually means.