Glossary

Finding some sights, sounds, tastes, smells or touch distressing or unbearable (see sensory hypersensitivity). Alternatively appearing not to notice some sensory stimuli (see sensory hyposensitivity).

Slight changes in the DNA sequences which makes up genes, as a result of mutations. Such changes may alter the instructions coded by a gene, leading to alterations in physical or psychological traits and behaviour.

A term sometimes used for the cognitive style characterised by focusing on individual details rather than the overall form, meaning or gist. In autism this may be especially apparent in the visual processing of scenes, and in language processing, where word meanings are processed individually rather than in their context within sentences. However, the evidence for this processing style in autism is mixed.