Dany Rubio

“The sensory problems in autism have nothing to do with oversensitivity to stimuli and are therefore not really sensory at all. Autistic brains are not – repeat not – more sensitive to light, sound, touch, etc.
(...) we need to remember that over time reducing the number of stimuli to which a person with autism is exposed can actually lead to an increase in the experience of sensory overload. If someone is being
troubled by a particular stimulus, reducing its frequency can bring immediate relief in the shape of greater calm inside that person’s head, but in the long run this reduction makes the brain even more sensitive to that stimulus. Why? Because it adjusts its model of the world accordingly.
An example? Noise-cancelling headphones are a great solution for people who are troubled by particular sounds. They are no longer plagued by prediction errors, because
they are no longer subjected to unexpected sounds. But if you wear the headphones too often and for too long, your brain will eventually ‘learn’ that the world is a quiet place and will then adjust its model of the world to reflect this new ‘knowledge.’ This means that when in future you are once
again exposed to noise (which is inevitable at some point), even if it is only relatively mild noise, your brain will be shocked by what is now a disproportionately large prediction
error and you will become overstimulated as a result.”
― Peter Vermeulen, Autismus und das prädiktive Gehirn: Absolutes Denken in einer relativen Welt