The muscles are not as firm or tight as developmentally expected. Children with low muscle tone normally have delayed motor skills, difficulty with motor coordination and weakness in the muscles to name a few. Low muscle tone is often seen in children with autism.
Remarkably, half of children with ASD show a concurrent occurrence of hypotonia1. Affected infants, often referred to as “floppy babies,” have lower muscle strength and may appear “hyperactive” because of the inability to control posture.
Many children with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) and Asperger's (AS) have a comorbid condition called Hypotonia, which is sometimes referred to as "floppiness." This is because the muscles are meant to help support the skeletal system and are designed to prevent certain kinds of motion.
Loose joint, some tight muscles
In addition children with GJH often have some tight muscles in the hips and shoulders. This affects sitting comfortably on a chair or cross legged on the floor, as well as shoulder movements needed for drawing and handwriting.
Our child might be labelled as “clumsy”, bump into people/objects, drape themselves over furniture, and tire quickly when holding body positions such as sitting. Often, the reason for this can be a musculature weakness of the core – the muscles in their back and abdominals – which impacts on balance and posture.
People with autism sometimes may have physical symptoms, including digestive problems such as constipation and sleep problems. Children may have poor coordination of the large muscles used for running and climbing, or the smaller muscles of the hand. About a third of people with autism also have seizures.
Autistic people may display a range of strengths and abilities that can be directly related to their diagnosis, including: Learning to read at a very early age (known as hyperlexia).
“The results of our study indicate that in most cases, the sensitivity to pain of people with autism is actually higher than that of most of the population, while at the same time they are unsuccessful at effectively suppressing painful stimuli.
Although the autistic will generally lean toward inflexibility, he may also be able to influence how entrenched his patterns become. For the ASD individual who wishes to work on flexibility, the following suggestions may help.
Two types of reaction are typical of autism meltdowns – an explosive reaction or a withdrawal. Explosive reactions may involve screaming, shouting, aggressive behaviour or crying. On the other hand, less explosive reactions may include refusing to communicate or interact, withdrawing themselves or shutting down.
Autistic individuals prefer predictability, routines, and patterns, making sudden changes difficult. It bothers them greatly when unexpected changes occur, and they become very upset about it. For instance, HFA individuals may stick with routines developed for them by other people or themselves.
Autistic adults suggest several causes, including: sensory overload. dealing with social situations. masking or camouflaging their autistic traits.
People with ASD have a reduced perception of their body movement or shift relative to their own postural orientation and equilibrium.
Sensory Issues
Many people with autism experience sensory processing disorder. This is more commonly known as sensory overload. Noise, crowds, bright lights, strong tastes, smells, and being touched can feel unbearable to someone with HFA. This makes going to restaurants, movies, and shopping malls difficult.
Being autistic can make fatigue and burnout more likely, due to the pressures of social situations and sensory overload.
This is particularly important as we knew from previous studies that people with autism tend to have poorer muscular strength and endurance than is typical for their age.
On quantitative sensory tests, there were no differences in thermal and pain detection thresholds between the autistic and non-autistic groups. This indicates normal pain and thermal thresholds, suggesting "normal functioning of the peripheral nervous system" among participants with autism.
The myth of coldness in autism is likely due to the presence of the subclinical trait of alexithymia, which is often associated with autism, but is distinct and can be present in the general population, and is characterized by the inability to recognize one's own, or others' emotions.
An autistic person will feel emotions and will want to communicate emotions to those around them. However, it is not uncommon to encounter difficulties in expressing oneself. Indeed, people with autism spectrum disorder will encounter certain obstacles in recognizing various facial expressions.
The superpowers often cited for autistic adults include: Very good attention to detail. Having excellent long term memories. Memorising and learning information quickly.
While love is expressed and experienced differently from person to person, those with autism are fully capable of forming deep emotional connections. These can include love for their family, friends, romantic partners, or even interests and hobbies.
Children with autism are often clumsy, physically awkward or uncoordinated.
The classical approach to autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is often limited to considering their neuro-functional aspects. However, recent scientific literature has shown that ASDs also affect many body systems and apparatuses such as the immune system, the sensory-motor system, and the gut-brain axis.
Touch is an important component of many social experiences for many people. Autistic children commonly avoid social touch more than non-autistic peers. It is generally thought that this is due to autistic individuals experiencing hyper- or hyposensitivity of touch.