Join Dr. Regan for this third episode in the "Lifespan of a Household" series. This episode highlights topics important to living in shared space, including the sensory environment, alone time, and control over objects. Also, check out links to resources on her website and a transcript of the episode below. 

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Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining me for this third episode in our series on autism and the lifespan of a household. My name is Dr. Theresa Regan, and I'm your host. I'm a neuropsychologist, a certified autism specialist, and mom to a young adult on the spectrum. This series is the result of listener requests about living as a couple or as a family within a shared household. And as we've touched on, one of the challenges of tackling the topic is that households can take so many different forms. And I know that I can't do them all justice in just one series, but I wanted to touch on some important life seasons within a household.

So our first episode was about dating, and the second covered the topic of physical intimacy and relationships. And today we're going to talk about sharing physical space with other people. So joining households, living in the same space. I'll also let you know that a lot of my website renovations have been completed. There are still some things I'm tweaking and trying to make work better, but lots of the pages are active and working. And I also now have the new service of video visits for people to consult me about the topic of autism or how that impacts you in your household. There are some geographic limitations and there are some specifics about payment and if you are interested in that type of service head on over to my website at adultandgeriatricautism.com and look under video visits.

So there are many different instances where physical space might be shared in a type of household. So we may be talking about a traditional couple or a family household or even other situations like having roommates or renting a portion of someone else's home. And sharing living space can be complex for lots of reasons, but for the autistic, there may be a few specific challenges that we could cover in the episode today that would help people navigate those things. So in particular, we're going to cover the sensory environment, alone time, and having control over objects.

So let's tackle the sensory environment first. First, because the autistic individual may have sensory sensitivities, living in the household with other people may be overwhelming because people bump into each other or reach over each other or they brush against each other to navigate the physical space. Noise can be another sensory input that's elevated in a household, and the noise could include voices, babies crying, arguments, even just surround noise like television or music. How things smell can be important to someone on the spectrum. The scent of food cooking or aftershave, candles, cigarettes, cleaning products, taste and texture can come into play if we're talking about shared groceries or family meals, does everyone have to eat the same thing?

Let's not forget about visual inputs. So not only does this include lighting, but a very common issue that I hear about is concern for the visual space or having visual chaos. So for some on the spectrum, the sight of a visual messiness or overcrowdedness or chaos can be overwhelming. And this could include things like decorations, messy work areas, things on the floor, clothes, garbage, food, strewn about various surfaces. And this visual chaos can feel overwhelming. Now, before you start laughing because you've seen someone's space and you know that they're not concerned about visual chaos, that's true. Not everyone on the spectrum will have the same sensory processing feature. And neither will everyone who is neurotypical. So people in the household will have different preferences. Many people on the spectrum may have very little care for the visual cleanliness or organization of their space except for a few specific things. So maybe they have very significant care about where their favorite objects are placed or how things are lined up, but other things are strewn over the floor and there's not much care at all. The more people there are in the household, the more mix there will be of habits and preferences and clash with the habits and preferences of others. Another complicating factor is that as people age across life seasons, their sensory processing and preferences can also change. So you have not only complexity, but you have this multifaceted, always changing sensory sensory environment, and sensory preferences across multiple people within the same shared living space. So that is a moving, dynamic, complex kind of issue.

Now, one of the best ways to start addressing this is what we've talked about in multiple other episodes, And that is self-awareness. So that's that ability to say, hey, I know what makes me tick. I know what my nervous system likes and doesn't like. I know what I need today. And I also observe and have talked to and am aware of other household members. I have awareness that what they need may not be the same thing I need. And this place is shared by people with different needs. So having awareness of what the needs are is a huge place to start. The next step is to add the right now element. So the self-awareness that we talked about, that's the always element. Like, I know what's generally, typically always true about our household from day to day. Now, look at the right now element. So in this specific moment, what do people need? What do people need this morning, today, this week, this holiday season? One way to accomplish this in a household is to have huddles. So a huddle is a very quick rundown. It's a triaging process. For those of you who maybe use that in a workplace or know what that means, triaging is the ability to quickly scan what's happening, what's most important, what needs to be done the quickest, and to prioritize how these things will be handled. So in a triaging process where people are able, they're already self-aware, they're are able to highlight how their system is doing and what the day will be or has been like given their schedule. A huddle could take place between two parents of three young kids, maybe in the morning and after work. This type of brief communication helps everyone get on the same page. So instead of this confrontation and argument where one person says, I told you to do this or why are you doing that? We start with, hey, this is really chaotic. what do you need right now? This is what I need. This is the schedule for the day. This type of communication also represents and reestablishes that the household is committed to partnership. I want you to do well. I want to know what's important to you and what you need. And here is what is a priority for me today. So rather than being impulsive and reactive to what's happening throughout the day, oh my gosh, something just happened to me. I react to it because I want it to stop. We can start off with awareness and a general game plan rather than kind of flipping around crisis mode, and often that means pushing against other people.

The household itself will also need some adaptations to the sensory needs of the individual. So not only do we start with self-awareness and then have up-to-date huddles, like this is what's going on this morning, this is what's going on after work, we also have to look at the sensory needs in the whole household and how that can be adapted. So there will likely be some foods that are completely off the table, like there's just such a high smell, taste, or texture aversion that cannot be avoided or coped with that it's not worth the amount of drain on people in the household. So one person may love fish or collard greens or something with a strong smell or scent that's really overwhelming to someone else and there's just no way around it. It just gets into the house. So those foods are off the table. If you're going to have that food, go out to someone's house as a guest and eat it there or eat it at a restaurant. Some adaptations may not be all or nothing. They may have to do with getting equipment like sound-canceling headphones or earbuds for people, sometimes having a designated quiet time if the kids are old enough to understand stand and regulate this. Like 12 to 1 is quiet time. A weighted blanket may be a good sensory tool for calming, as might something like a rocking chair or a swing set.

Another thing I want to point out that may be confusing to people about the sensory environment in household with neurodiversity is that the person who is sound sensitive may also make a lot of noise. And that seems to be because the noise they make is predictable and controlled by them, whereas the noise that comes at them can feel repeatedly startling and overwhelming and they don't have the control that they need. And another thing is that sometimes, you know, it's this hard to understand presentation because the person may be loud because they're overwhelmed and need quiet. So it can be, you can't always kind of look and say, well, you're being loud, you must not need quiet. Or you're running around and crashing and rolling, you must not need quiet time. So a lot of times those kinds of behaviors are a signal that the person does need some regulation help, and that can be achieved by a quieter space, time alone, a weighted blanket, and those kinds of things.

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