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Autistics have many sensory differences. They often have hypersensitivities to noise, light and touch, so that what other people consider ordinary sounds, such as a vacuum cleaner, may hurt an autistic person's ears.

Another difficulty for autistics is that many are unable to filter out background information. An example is being unable to make a phone call while in a busy environment, because the person is only able to block out background noise by also blocking out the other person's voice. Unfortunately, we often naturally need to attend to several different sensory stimuli - if only for the reason that we have five different senses (well, four in my case), so even without such complicating factors as needing to make phone calls, the environment can be pretty overwhelming to an autistic person.

Sensory overload happens when the autistic person is overwhelmed by the sensory stimulation of their environment. There are many ways in which a person might respond to sensory overload. Some autistics will become unable to process sensory stimuli, while others, like myself, will become all the more hypersensitive to them. One way in which I can tell that I'm sensorially overloaded, is that sounds that I can normally tolerate, begin to hurt my ears.

Sensory overload may lead to many typically autistic behavioral differences. Some autistics will become withdrawn and irrensponsive to their environments and may lose skills. This is called shutdown. Others, like myself mostly, will have a meltdown, in which they may respond with rage or even violence towards themselves or others.

Coping with snsory overload is a very individual thing. For some people, it works to remove themselves from the environment and go into a quiet, low-stimulation area. Others may find it helpful to add some stimulation that they can completely attend to, such as favorite music. Sometimes, stereotypical behavior ("stimming"), such as rocking, may be a coping strategy.