How do people with an autistic disorder experience the world? Does the world look the same as it does to everyone else or is their experience very different? Is it possible to imagine yourself in the world of an autistic person? To gain insight into this, it is important to know what an autistic disorder entails.

What is autism?

Autism is characterized by problems in social interaction, need for structure, difficulty with changes, different sensory perception, overstimulation and sometimes also stereotypical movements and aggression or self-mutilation (self-harm).The difficult thing about autism is that every autistic person is different. Not all characteristics apply to every autist. There are different forms of autism. The most common are classic autism, PDD NOS and Asperger’s.However, you can identify a number of general characteristics of autism in behavior, thinking and feeling:

Behaviour

Autistic people exhibit deviant behavior with problems in social interaction. Some autistic people are socially active, others are very passive and some avoid all forms of contact. They have verbal and non-verbal disabilities. This can manifest itself in abnormal or limited body language and abnormalities in stimulus processing. Autistic people can be very weak verbally, they do not speak or take everything literally. On the other hand, autistic people can also be very strong verbally, they are fluent talkers with an enormous vocabulary. However, the communication is superficial and there is little reciprocity in the conversation. Clear behavioral abnormalities can manifest themselves in stereotypical and compulsive activities. Adapting to new situations is very difficult for autistic people.

Think

Autistic people think from details to the whole. For other people this works the other way around. People with an autistic disorder quickly become overstimulated. This is because stimuli come in more intensely through their senses and do not form a logical whole in the brain. Autistic people experience this as a mess in their heads.Autistic people lack imagination. This means that they have difficulty imagining new situations, objects or abstract concepts. Everything that is not stored in an image is difficult or impossible for people with an autistic disorder to remove from the context.Communication with others is difficult for autistic people because they often take language literally and therefore do not understand or misinterpret spoken text. They do not see or understandfacial expressions, humor or cynicism . The extent to which these limitations are present in individuals depends largely on the form of autism that he/or she suffers from. Even within the spectrum of each autistic disorder, there are many differences per person in the degree of problems they experience . in their thinking.

To feel

Autistic people find it difficult to control their feelings. They can be overwhelmed by feelings and therefore overreact. As a result, they are too focused on details and the response appears inappropriate to others. Because the thinking process is different, autistic people can sometimes react late to feelings. They initially appear apathetic, but then the reaction to emotions comes later, often very unexpectedly for others. Sometimes they do not know what to do with intense emotions and respond by intense fear, running away or by attacking.

How does an autistic person experience the world?

Limitations faced by a person with an autistic disorder:

• Need for structure
• Difficulty with changes
• Overstimulation
• Different sensory perception
• Special interests

Need for structure

Autistic people are always looking for stability in their lives. If there is little structure in their lives, they panic. As a parent of a child with autism, you can help your child by adding a lot of structure to the child’s life. You notice that adults, if they are able to do so, try to structure their lives. This can be done, for example, by making a clear daily or weekly schedule. Without structure, the world looks very threatening and fearful for people with an autistic disorder. They lack guidance and can therefore regularly panic.

Difficulty with changes

Related to the structure, an autistic person also has difficulty with changes in his/her life. Changes disrupt daily affairs and provide less stability. They often react very strongly to this, through very busy, aggressive or apathetic behavior. If you take someone with an autistic disorder on holiday, he/she will be upset during the first few days. If you get used to it after a few days, things will get better, but as soon as the holiday is over, this process will repeat itself again. As a result, unlike other people, an autistic person cannot enjoy unexpected events in his/her life.

Overstimulation

Autistic people can quickly become overstimulated. They are then unable to process stimuli that come their way. These can be stimuli in the form of light, sound, feeling or smell, sensory stimuli, but also stimuli arising from social interaction. Hypersensitivity to light or sound can make life very difficult for an autistic person. There is a difference between hyper- and hyposensitivity. With hypersensitivity the autistic avoids sound or light, while with hyposensitivity he/she feels very attracted to sound or light.A lot can also go wrong in social interaction with other people, causing an autistic person to become overstimulated. The life of an autistic person should be predictable , but other people often do and say much less predictable things. This makes them very upset and can result in inappropriate behavior, aggressiveness, anger, but also apathetic or withdrawn behavior. The autistic person feels restless and uncomfortable. He/she understands nothing about the world.

Different sensory perception

People with an autistic disorder can be hypersensitive to certain sensory impressions. This has already been mentioned in the case of overstimulation and is clearly related to this. Sensory hypersensitivity usually concerns sound, light, smells or touch. If an autistic person is sensitive to sound, he/she is often afraid of unexpected or loud sounds. A suddenly popping balloon, loud music or fireworks are sounds that can make them very anxious. They can also become obsessed with sound and constantly seek it out. This applies to all sensory impressions. This sensory hypersensitivity can hinder functioning for people with an autistic disorder.

Special interests

Autistic people can have, in our view, an extreme interest in certain subjects. This could be anything. Trains, tigers, computer games or ships, they only care about their interests. They want to know everything about it and collect everything about this subject. Such a special interest in an autistic person is called a “fiep”. Other people will not understand that obsession with a certain subject and that makes social interaction with an autistic person very difficult. They will have little interest and attention for your topics. This will make conversations very one-sided. Autistic people do not understand that their interests are not shared by everyone.All limitations and problems that an autistic person faces are closely linked. There is so much difference in the form and extent of the autistic disorder, so much diversity there is in the limitations that autistic people experience. It is therefore very difficult to make a statement about how autistic people experience the world, because it is different for everyone with an autistic disorder. The world looks different for autistic people than for other people and in order to be able to empathize with it a little, it is important to carefully observe which limitations you have to deal with in a specific case. news highlighted