Sensory Clusters of Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Conditions.
Marie Elwin, Agneta Schröder, Lena Ek and 2 others
PMID 27921201WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with autism spectrum conditions fell into low, intermediate, and high sensory reactivity groups.
The high group reported both overreacting and underreacting to senses, plus strong sensory interests and motor clumsiness. Screen adults for these patterns rather than assuming uniform sensory problems.
Key findings
01The autism sample contained low, intermediate, and high sensory clusters: 52% low, 17% intermediate, and 17% high.
02The high cluster had concurrent high awareness/hyperreactivity and low awareness/hyporeactivity, with elevated scores across all subscales.
03Cluster membership was associated with ADHD or anxiety comorbidity, but not with age, gender, education, or occupation.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The autism sample was recruited from psychiatric and habilitation services, so it may not represent adults with autism in the wider community. Most participants received their autism diagnosis in adulthood, and people with intellectual disability were excluded. The general population sample had a 33.8% response rate and did not provide information on psychiatric diagnoses or autism traits. The SR-AS scale was not extensively validated, and the cluster analysis used subscale scores rather than separate sensory modalities. Demographic comparisons in the autism sample were underpowered, so absence of associations with age, gender, education, or occupation may reflect small subgroup sizes. Psychiatric comorbidity was high, which may limit generalisability to adults with autism without comorbid conditions.
Declared interests
Funded by Uppsala-Örebro Regional Research Council and the Research Committee of Region Örebro County.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the low, intermediate, and high clusters as fixed autism subtypes. The study used only self-report, did not measure autism traits in both samples, and the paper notes no research comparing self-report with parent report.