Published on 12, July, 2020
I find it hard to relax and often don't want to go out as I just end up getting upset, it's as if everywhere I go I see something wrong, even just going for a run in the park, kids are smoking drugs, people drinking and dog owners allowing their dogs to run about despite it clearly saying on the gate that all dogs must be kept on a leash. It seems whenever I get on a bus theres at least one PSD (personal stereo dhead) with crackling headphones and complete disregard for others or one woman with perfume that stinks the whole bus out and my latest annoyance is buskers...the trend now is that they have amplifiers and the music really is so loud that I want to scream at them. It also seems that everywhere I go there is people taking drugs, where I live they smoke drugs and sometimes the whole house stinks of it, you go to the park and kids are doing it and even yesterday I was at a market I seen people smoking it 3 times. On top of this, the place where I live over the last year has had 3 neighbouring properties do rennovations and each time they had no regard for sound regulations regarding audible noise coming from building sites, apparently you are anly allowed to make noise from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-1pm on Saturday but countless times they worked till late, on Sundays etc and when you tell the council they do nothing at all. Then theres those bloody chuggers...the high street is like a no go area sometimes, people jump in front of you and hold out their hand expecting to shake your hand like they have known you for years "hello my friend how are you..."...or they block your walking path to ask you if you can answer a quick question it only takes a minute..etc..Then you get people riding their bikes on the pavement, I have had 2 near misses already....then you've got idiots walking around with those crazy dogs which really annoys me despite god knows how many people getting their face chewed off. the owners waltz around all big and hard knowing that they are intimidating because they have an untrained wild animal that is bred to be aggressive. While all these things may seem trivial it seems society is on a downward spiral when it comes to casual law breaking and disrespect for others as in my experience it just gets worse and worse year on year....this is the society created by man.
It would be nice if NAS would press for inclusion of sensory difficulties in guidelines on autism.
For example the modified Triad used in the NICE Guidelines for adults with autism, which integrates communication and social, and has a second arm based on routine and organisational issues attributed "avoiding crowds" to the latter.
I would have thought for most people on the spectrum, avoiding crowds is a response to sensory issues and overload. The trouble is most of the guidelines on autism, if they mention sensory issues at all, treat it as a minor secondary condition.
Yet I suspect sensory overload may be a key factor in explaining the social and communication difficulties.
IntenseWorld's link is to a tiny study of four people with marked autism and learning disability (if not language limitations) and their responses to noisy objects, for which they were given cards to use to communicate discomfort. At that level any progress in understanding is going to be a long time coming!
I'm talking about the experiences of people across the spectrum, including those deemed able or mild, because it seems to me that sensory issues forms a fairly universal problem, that might be a baseline characteristic rather than this so-called spectrum grading into the general population. Lots of people on the spectrum have difficulty with noise. Little is done to help.
I've commented elsewhere on the Guides to Employers. Noise in workplaces, including conversational noise, is crucial for people on the spectrum in the workplace. Are employers told about it?
I don't think that NAS takes noise issues seriously, and I also object to NAS churning out the Triad of Impairments, as if it adequately defines the day to day experiences of people with autism - it is a diagnostic tool.