Key differences between SPD and ASD

Unless this is a population that one has directly experienced either through a family member, friend, or line of profession, few people seem to have an accurate understanding or perception of what autism really truly is and equally what it is NOT. If you have been using the internet as source of information without anyone who can help you to distinguish some of the nuances between these two disorders, particularly in light of the amount of misleading, inaccurate information commonly available, it would be entirely understandable that there is a part of you in a state of terror that your child may be autistic. So, given the fact that I want to ease your stress, not perpetuate it, I ultimately put this section much higher up than it was initially.

As opposed to the widely accepted social media depiction of individuals purporting to have this disorder. Autism spectrum disorder requires that the individual struggle significantly (do not read “is nervous at parties/socially anxious” those are very different things, similar symptoms, please remember the reasons as to why trying to diagnose yourself or anyone else is a poor choice) at properly interpreting, expressing, understanding and responding appropriately to social cues. Fundamentally, this is the key piece that makes ASD what it actually is, not what every seventh person “just found out they had at the age of 36”. 

The second category of criteria involve sensory issues, some of which are also present in SPD depending on the child’s individual profile. These include things like becoming distressed in overstimulating environments, either visually, ones that are too noisy, too busy, too crowded, potentially places with strong odors such as a candle shop or the food court at the mall; tactile sensitivity, often presenting as avoiding physical touch, the repeated stroking/fondling of particular typically soft, fabrics, aversion to things such as seams in socks or tags in clothing, aversion to certain tactile sensations such as things that are sticky, dirty, wet sand, walking barefoot on grass, others include what are considered to be “purposeless movement” frequently known as stimming. This could be hand flapping, head banging, rocking, and spinning. This is not an all-inclusive list, I don’t have the DSM directly in front of me, but that’s the gist of it. NOW: DON’T PANIC if while you were reading this, I described some things your child does. 

To clarify to the point of redundancy, in order for an official ASD diagnosis, your child needs to have both sensory symptoms as well as social ones. I also want to state that older children who have not been diagnosed correctly frequently do struggle with social situations, because children are very perceptive and they are likely to notice the kids who are in any way “different” and while society is making progress in some ways, some “differences” between peers are more readily accepted than others. One really critical difference between ASD and SPD is that children with ASD, particularly those who are more profound, generally are not bothered by this fact. Kids with SPD are frequently average or above in areas of emotional intelligence. Being teased, bullied, ostracized etc. is tremendously painful, humiliating and shameful. 

Another key and tremendously overlooked in terms of investigating the WHY that causes this, behaviors that can be present in both disorders, is lack of eye contact/difficulty maintaining and or using it appropriately and as is considered” socially normative”. This is considered one of the hallmark or commonly known symptoms of ASD. What generally is the driving factor in individuals with ASD is that they find it unpleasant potentially, or they may not understand how and when to use it appropriately and with those individuals who are more profound, left to their own devices, would be just fine never learning. In children with SPD, they may avoid eye contact (I can tell you this from my own experience and also from a conversation that I had with “my muse” once I was aware that SPD was a condition, and we both have it). “Eyes are the windows into the soul”. This commonly used phrase is so common because so much potentially can be seen by looking into another’s eyes. Now, for individuals who are hyper-visual, this can be downright overwhelming: both from what can be seen in another’s eyes, as well as what someone else might be reading in yours. 

There are also some individuals who struggle to process visual and auditory information at the same time, so if you are talking to one of these individuals, their lack of eye contact may be because they are trying to focus on what you are saying to them. I will also share with you that while at this point in my life, I have no struggles with eye contact, in fact I have been told by various professors/clinical supervisors that it’s an area of strength, as a child I did big-time. I honestly don’t remember if I was chastised (likely) or this was something that I learned with age and experience and being bullied, but I remember very methodically training myself to make eye contact. Basically this started out with me forcing myself to make eye contact, count to five, gradually work up to ten, and like anything, with practice it became natural and it was no longer uncomfortable. I have also worked with some high functioning individuals who while they do make eye contact, it is (at least to my hyper-visual perception) unnatural. 

When discussing eye contact with these individuals, they stated that it never became natural or comfortable despite how much they practiced. Again, for those of you who are internally panicking: BREATHE. I realize that these are some very fine and quite possibly difficult to distinguish points I am making. Particularly if your child is not verbal due to age or potential speech delay. This is not a remotely impossible task.  Nor one that at this point in my experience, it is not  tremendously difficult for me to distinguish between the two disorders, including this specific feature. I also know the key questions to ask that are very helpful in making this determination. This ability is something that came with experience and in depth understanding of both disorders. I offer more information on specifically what I learned to help me be able of doing this, and if you’re interested it is discussed under “Things I learned by giving autism assessments”.

Now I am going to discuss some more common behavioral signs that I want to say to you: if you are like most people and the first thing you have done is hopped online and read all sorts of research about early childhood disorders, I am going to list some behaviors that are frequently extremely distressing to parents for two reasons: in of themselves, they are seemingly uncommon and representative of things that strike fear into the heart of every parent (these behaviors are more common than you would think, but people tend not to talk about them, primarily because they both can evoke fear and shame in the parent, which are two unpleasant emotions all humans attempt to avoid) and before the panic alarm starts in your head I’ll say this: yes, many of these behaviors are also found in children on the autism spectrum. Because there is an overlap which to my knowledge science does not have anywhere close to a solid understanding of, but autism spectrum disorder includes a sensory component in the diagnostic criteria. It also and of greater significance is a disorder that affects an individual’s ability to express, understand, interpret and react appropriately to social and emotional information. These two areas can exist together (which is what is defined currently as autism spectrum disorder) or they can exist independently of each other. 

Please do not panic, if your child exhibits some of these behaviors, it does not automatically mean that they are autistic. Simply from a probability standpoint, it is much more likely your child has SPD than ASD. I realize that is not how things are portrayed in the media, and I will get to that reason, this is a complex topic. So, please, take a breath, I will list the most common of these behaviors and offer a briefish explanation behind why your child is likely doing these if they are in fact doing them. Are you ready? Ok, here we go. These behaviors include: walking on their toes, spinning, hand flapping, rocking, and the most concerning and distressing for every parent/caregiver to witness: head banging. 

The motivation for these behaviors, (which minus the toe walking, there are a few different reasons for that),  frequently called “purposeless movements” is anything but purposeless. That is because someone who did not understand SPD or ASD  named them. The reason children do these things is because they are attempting to do one of two things, sometimes both: they are attempting to seek out information from their senses, and if they are hyposentsitive (as in require a stronger sensory stimulus in order for it to actually register) particularly in the vestibular or proprioceptive senses, these behaviors are comforting. This is your child’s built in automatic attempt to self-soothe. Please do not see it as something they are doing in an attempt to hurt themselves, particularly with young children, they are unlikely to actually bang their heads hard enough to cause injury. There are other situations (such as in the midst of a tantrum) where a child may bang their head into the floor, and this is another of those situations where we really need to pull apart why the child was having a tantrum. I will discuss the second situation at another time, but if we are looking at the child having a tantrum because they are essentially expressing physically that their little nervous system has hit panic mode, they are so overwhelmed that what little control they are capable of having (we know that children frequently act impulsively at times, make poor decisions, behave erratically, and in general are not as good at controlling their emotions (particularly strong ones like, fear and anger, as well as the physical response to pain because the part of the brain that handles all of those more complex processes doesn’t fully mature until our early to mid-twenties) has completely flown out of their little bodies and they are simply reacting to something that has overwhelmed them. I promise you your child is not intentionally doing these things because they just want to annoy or get a reaction from you, or realistically, can entirely control this inclination towards what is considered “sensation seeking”.

Just a simple reminder to keep things all in context because I realize, I am throwing a ton of information at you. Personally, I love working with this specific disorder because it is so ridiculously complex that it always is throwing new challenges and puzzles at me. I also will tell you that I am and have always been a great big nerd with a capitol N, I wear that title proudly, and depending upon the day, I might just accompany that statement with a little impromptu song and or dance on the fly. Because that’s just who I am. I am fully aware that I am something of a rare breed, but that is why you’re working with me: I figure out the more complex parts and help you make a realistic plan that is going to work for you and your child and your family’s specific needs. 

That doesn’t mean that parenting a child with SPD does not involve a huge commitment and lot of effort on your part, because it is going to and it will. However, children in general involve huge commitments and efforts, and wouldn’t you prefer to spend that effort doing something that can often be a lot of fun, is giving you a wonderful opportunity to bond with your child, is helping to improve their behaviors, and is NOT simply trying to spend every day avoiding something that might potentially cause a tantrum which means you might wind up at the place where you have everything sent to your house that you can never leave because you really don’t know that will or what won’t create a tantrum? Even then, to avoid tantrums over food and clothing, you have decided to let your child eat chicken nuggets, tater tots, and only a specific brand of rice pudding, and to avoid the clothing problems, your child runs around entirely naked. I am not judging you if that seems like it might be a potential lifestyle you could embrace...that is one option. It is likely going to create some issues as your child gets older, because even if you do virtual school, they probably frown upon being on camera entirely nude…it may also drastically inhibit your personal life outside of your identity as parent. But, it is always good to have a plan B…and to be completely honest, I would not doubt at all you would be the first parent to think that might not be, all things considered, an option that does not have at least a tiny bit of appeal. 

So, let’s take a step back, let’s take a few breaths, and go back to something that if any of the things I’ve discussed so far in any way hit home to you about the things that you are seeing in your child, this is a piece of information that I hope you will be able to carry with you and come back to when you’re feeling overwhelmed, afraid, exhausted, and or hopeless (to name a few of the possible strong emotions, there are many others that are strong candidates as well). At the end of the day, if your child has SPD, this is a neurological disorder, there are some pretty sound treatments available, and there are a lot of things that can be done to help make your child’s life easier, your life less stressful, and your family more peaceful. This is not a hopeless situation by any mean. situation. The key piece of information to remember is this: our seven different senses provide us with constant information about the world. Childhood is a time of tremendous growth and maturation physically and neurologically. Essentially, childhood is a time for a tremendous amount of learning to take place. For kiddos who have SPD, some or all of their senses are not giving them reliable or accurate information, which makes it that much harder to learn anything. Be it things about their environment, social and emotional behavior, as well as the things they will need to learn when they begin school. I believe that every single parent wants to be able to provide absolutely everything that they can in order to help their child grow up into successful (in all ways, not simply career), responsible, resilient, capable amazing humans. For children who have SPD, they need extra support in some areas. As a parent or caregiver to a child with SPD, you need extra support. This is going to be a team effort, and I want to be on your team. 

This is where I come in. When I went down the labyrinth of researching SPD, I didn’t have a specific !!!!!