Visual Sensory Experiences From the Viewpoint of Autistic Adults

Parmar, Ketan R.; Porter, Catherine S.; Dickinson, Christine; Pelham, James; Baimbridge, Peter; Gowen, Emma

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.633037

Cited by 20 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 89 publications

(135 reference statements)

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“…18 Furthermore, qualitative research has highlighted that autistic adults can be overwhelmed by and avoid certain public places, such as large shops, hospitals, cinemas, pubs, and libraries due to the sensory environment. 19,20 It is possible that adapting these environments will help autistic individuals to participate in public spaces. For example, research has shown that adapting the sensory environment in classrooms improved children's mood and performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“It Is a Big Spider Web of Things”: Sensory Experiences of Autistic Adults in Public Spaces

MacLennan

Woolley

@21andsensory

et al. 2023

Autism in Adulthood

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Background: Sensory processing differences are commonly experienced by autistic individuals, and some sensory experiences can greatly impact the mental health and quality of life of individuals.Previous research suggests that adapting the sensory nature of environments may improve individual experiences and engagement with these spaces. However, knowledge about which public places are particularly disabling is limited, especially from the perspective of autistic individuals. Little is also known about what in the sensory environment makes them particularly disabling. Method:In this participatory research study, we investigated the sensory experiences of autistic adults in public spaces. We used an online focus group method, recruiting 24 autistic adults across 7 focus groups. We applied content analysis, reflexive thematic analysis, and case study analysis. Results:The results of the content analysis showed that supermarkets, eateries (i.e., restaurants, cafés, pubs), highstreets and city/town centres, public transport, healthcare settings (i.e., doctor's surgeries and hospitals), and retail shops and shopping centres, are experienced to be commonly disabling sensory environments for autistic adults. Whereas, outdoor spaces, retail shops, museums, concert venues/clubs, cinemas/theatres, and stadiums were identified to be commonly less disabling sensory environments. Additionally, through reflexive thematic analysis we identified 6 key principles that underlie how disabling or enabling sensory environments are: Sensoryscape (sensory environment), Space, Predictability, Understanding, Adjustments, and Recovery. We represented these principles as a web to emphasise the interconnected, dimensional spectrum of the different themes. Lastly, we used case study analysis to evidence these principles in the commonly disabling sensory environments for richer detail and context and to provide credibility for the principles.Conclusions: Our findings have important implications for businesses, policy, and built environment designers to reduce the sensory impact of public places to make them more enabling for autistic people.By making public spaces more enabling, we may be able to improve quality of life for autistic individuals. Community briefWhy was this study done? Autistic people often experience differences in sensory processing, such as finding bright lights and sounds overwhelming and painful. This has been linked to poorer quality of life and mental health. Not much is known about how public places could be changed to be less disabling for autistic adults.What was the purpose of this study? We aimed to find out which public places are disabling for autistic adults due to the sensory environment, and what about these places makes them especially challenging.What did the researchers do? We invited autistic adults to take part in online focus groups to tell us about their sensory experiences in public places. In total, 24 people took part across 7 focus groups.We analysed the data 3 ways: 1) we conducted content analysis,...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“It Is a Big Spider Web of Things”: Sensory Experiences of Autistic Adults in Public Spaces

MacLennan

Woolley

@21andsensory

et al. 2023

Autism in Adulthood

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“…Note that sensory behaviors reported in ASD are relatively heterogenous as there are inter‐individual differences in the intensity and evolution of the sensory features (Dwyer et al, 2020). Qualitative approaches with focus groups can also assess self‐reported sensitivity/responsivity in ASD and revealed a range of visual hypersensitivities/over‐responsivities in autistic adults, which negatively impact their daily lives (Parmar et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A multilevel investigation of sensory sensitivity and responsivity in autistic adults

Sapey‐Triomphe,

Dierckx,

Vettori

et al. 2023

Autism Research

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Atypical sensory processing is a core symptom of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We aimed at better characterizing visual sensitivity and responsivity in ASD at the self-reported, behavioral and neural levels, and at describing the relationships between these levels. We refer to sensory sensitivity as the ability to detect sensory stimuli and to sensory responsivity as an affective response to sensory stimuli. Participants were 25 neurotypical and 24 autistic adults. At the self-reported level, autistic participants had higher scores of sensory sensitivity and responsivity than neurotypicals. The behavioral and neural tasks involved contrast-reversing gratings which became progressively (in)visible as their contrast or spatial frequency evolved. At the behavioral level, autistic participants had higher detection and responsivity thresholds when gratings varied in spatial frequency, but their thresholds did not differ from neurotypicals when gratings varied in contrast. At the neural level, we used fast periodic visual stimulations and electroencephalography to implicitly assess detection thresholds for contrast and spatial frequency, and did not reveal any group difference. Higher self-reported responsivity was associated with higher behavioral responsivity, more intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety, in particular in ASD. At the self-reported level, higher sensitivity was associated with more responsivity in both groups, contrary to the behavioral level where these relationships were not found. These heterogeneous results suggest that sensitivity and responsivity per se are not simply increased in ASD, but may be modulated by other factors such as environmental predictability. Multi-level approaches can shed light on the mechanisms underlying sensory issues in ASD. Lay SummarySensory issues often impact the daily lives of autistic individuals. Here, we measured visual sensitivity and responsivity at multiple levels and found that in autism, sensitivity and responsivity were higher at the self-reported level, typical or higher at the behavioral level, and typical at the neural level. This finer characterization of the sensitivity/responsivity profile of autistic individuals could contribute to defining sensitivity subtypes in autism and improving interventions.

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“…The remaining questions, (Q1) “Does anybody feel they experience any visual issues or unusual visual symptoms?”; (Q2) “Do you feel you can do anything to improve these symptoms” and (Q3) “How do your visual issues impact your daily routine?”, are discussed in another article about autistic visual sensory experiences 34 …”

Section: Study 1: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autism‐friendly eyecare: Developing recommendations for service providers based on the experiences of autistic adults

Parmar

Porter

Dickinson

et al. 2022

Ophthalmic Physiologic Optic

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Purpose: People with autism face significant barriers when accessing healthcare services. Eye examinations present unique challenges. Accessibility of this healthcare sector for people with autism has not been investigated previously. The aim of this research was to investigate eye examination accessibility for autistic adults and produce recommendations for autism-friendly eyecare.Methods: Two qualitative studies were conducted. In Study 1, 18 autistic adults took part in focus groups to elicit their eye examination experiences. Transcripts of the recorded discussions were thematically analysed. Study 1 findings were used to design autism-friendly eye examinations for autistic adults. These were conducted in Study 2. Twenty-four autistic adults participated in these examinations, during which they were interviewed about their experience and how it might be improved by reasonable modifications. Audio recordings of the interviews were content analysed. Results:Knowledge of what to expect, in advance of the eye examination, could greatly reduce anxiety. Participants liked the logical structure of the examination, and the interesting instrumentation used. However, the examination and practice environment did include sensory challenges, due to lights, sound and touch.Changes in practice layout, and interacting with multiple staff members, was anxiety provoking. Participants expressed a need for thorough explanations from the optometrist that outlined the significance of each test, and what the patient was expected to do. Conclusion:A number of accessiblity barriers were identified. These suggested that UK eye examinations are not very accessible for autistic adults. Barriers began at the point of booking the appointment and continued through to the dispensing of spectacles. These caused anxiety and stress for this population, but could be reduced with easy-to-implement adaptations. Based on the findings, recommendations are presented here for the whole eyecare team which suggest how more autism-friendly eye examinations can be provided.

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Visual Sensory Experiences From the Viewpoint of Autistic Adults

Cited by 20 publications

References 89 publications

“It Is a Big Spider Web of Things”: Sensory Experiences of Autistic Adults in Public Spaces

“It Is a Big Spider Web of Things”: Sensory Experiences of Autistic Adults in Public Spaces

A multilevel investigation of sensory sensitivity and responsivity in autistic adults

Autism‐friendly eyecare: Developing recommendations for service providers based on the experiences of autistic adults

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