Touching

As a mum one of the hardest things with C is he doesn ’t like being hugged.

It is not uncommon, for an autistic person to avoid being touched. This is usually because of a heightened sense of touch — a gentle touch to most people may hurt or shock some autistic people. Others may experience confusion, due to difficulty interpreting the sensation or insufficient sensation reaching the brain to interpret. Another, not uncommon pattern is to have the strength of the sensation inverse from that of the stimulation, so that a gentle touch may feel like an electric shock, but firm contact may not be a problem. Some autistic people may be insensitive to pain, and fail to notice injuries. C finds pain very difficult to interpret, I think that’s one of the reasons he hits his head so hard.

Temple Grandin talks a lot about firm touch., and how her discovery of deep pr essure ultimately helped her reduce her anxiety's debilitating effects.

C doesn ’t like being touched, or touching anything, even wearing clothes he just about tolerates. As you can imagine this makes life very difficult at times for him when he needs to go to the dentist, doctors etc. Not to mention mundane things like dressing him and washing him!

What do/don’t you like the feel of?