Friendly reminder that sensory processing disorder and autism are two separate conditions.
[PT: Friendly reminder that sensory processing disorder and autism are two separate conditions. /End PT]
95% of autistic people have SPD, but autism can occur without SPD. Those 5% of autistic people still matter, and shouldn't be told they're "not actually autistic" because they don't have sensory issues.
Additionally, SPD can occur without autism. SPD can be genetic, neurodevelopmental, from incidents occuring during fetal development/birth, from brain damage, and/or in response to trauma (particularly isolation or neglect, ie, tactile processing disorder can result from touch starvation.)
And SPD is an umbrella term for a lot of conditions as well - a person with SPD may only have one of these, or they may have multiple.
Types of SPD include:
-Sensory modulation disorder, in which a person has over-responsivity, under-responsivity, sensory seeking, or a mix of them. This could be tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, vestibular, proprioceptive, interoceptive, or a combination of multiple or all. -Sensory discrimination disorder (SDD), in which a person struggles to understand the details of their senses. This can have a variety of symptoms, such as mixing up senses (ie; mixing up nausea and hunger) being unable to identify something "obvious" when slightly altered (ie; unable to recognize a basketball when half of it is covered) processing senses out-of-order or without proper clarity (ie; processing the sounds of talking, but not being able to identify the words being spoken), etc. Subtypes include tactile DD, visual DD, auditory DD, olfactory DD, gustatory DD, vestibular DD, proprioceptive DD, and interoceptive DD. -Sensory-based motor disorder, in which a person struggles with movement due to sensory issues. Subtypes include postural disorder and dyspraxia.
All of these can occur in allistic (non-autistic) people. So don't automatically assume that a person with SPD is autistic, and vice versa.
