a device that would apply pressure to my body. I visualized a box with an inflatable liner that I could lie in. It would be like being totally encased in inflatable splints.
After visiting my aunt's ranch in Arizona, I got the idea of building such a device, patterned after the cattle squeeze chute I first saw there. When I watched cattle being put in the squeeze chute for their vaccinations, I noticed that some of them relaxed when they were pressed between the side panels. I guess I had made my first connection between those cows and myself, because a few days later, after I had a big panic attack, I just got inside the squeeze chute at the ranch. Since puberty I had experienced constant fear and anxiety coupled with severe panic attacks, which occurred at intervals of anywhere from a few weeks to several months. My life was based on avoiding situations that might trigger an attack.
I asked Aunt Ann to press the squeeze sides against me and to close the head restraint bars around my neck. I hoped it would calm my anxiety. At first there were a few moments of sheer panic as I stiffened up and tried to pull away from the pressure, but I couldn't get away because my head was locked in. Five seconds later I felt a wave of relaxation, and about thirty minutes later I asked Aunt Ann to release me. For about an hour afterward I felt very calm and serene. My constant anxiety had diminished. This was the first time I ever felt really comfortable in my own skin. Ann went along with my odd request to get in the cattle chute. She recognized that my mind worked in visual symbols, and she figured that the squeeze chute was an important part of my journey in the visual symbol world. I don't think she realized at the time that it was the pressure from the chute that relaxed me.
I copied the design and built the first human squeeze machine out of plywood panels when I returned to school. Entering the machine on hands and knees, I applied pressure to both sides of my body. The headmaster of my school and the school psychologist thought my machine was very weird and wanted to take it away. Professionals in those days had no understanding of autistic sensory problems; they still believed that autism was caused by psychological factors. Since they wanted to get rid of my machine, they alerted my mother, who became very concerned. Like the professionals, she had no idea that my attraction to pressure was biological.
Over the years I improved on the design of my machine. The most advanced version has two soft foam- padded panels that apply pressure along each side of my body and a padded opening that closes around my neck. I control the amount of pressure by pushing an air valve lever that pulls the two panels tight against my body. I can precisely control how much pressure my body receives. Slowly increasing and decreasing it is the most relaxing. Using the squeeze machine on a daily basis calms my anxiety and helps me to unwind.
When I was young I wanted very intense pressure, almost to the point of pain. This machine provided great relief. The earliest version of the squeeze machine, with its hard wood sides, applied greater amounts of pressure than later versions with soft padded sides. As I learned to tolerate the pressure, I modified the machine to make it softer and gentler. Now that medication has reduced the hyperarousal of my nervous system, I prefer much less pressure.
Since many people were trying to convince me to give up the machine, I had many ambivalent feelings about using it. I was torn between two opposing forces: I wanted to please my mother and the school authorities by giving the machine up, but my biology craved its calming effect. To make matters worse, I had no idea at that time that my sensory experiences were different from those of other people. Since then I've learned that other people with autism also crave pressure and have devised methods to apply it to their bodies. Tom McKean wrote in his book Soon Will Come the Light that he feels a low-intensity pain throughout his body which is relieved by pressure. He finds that very tight pressure works best. The amount of pressure a person desires may be related to his or her nervous arousal level.
Tom's overall sensory processing problems are more severe than mine. It is possible that for people with such problems, pressure to the point of pain functions as an attempt to reduce sensory discomfort. Tom wears very tight wristwatch straps on both wrists. He makes the bands as tight as he can without cutting off blood circulation. He also made a pressure suit consisting of a wet suit with an inflatable life jacket under it. He can adjust the pressure by blowing air into the valve on the jacket. Other adults with autism have also sought relief through the application of pressure. One man wore very tight belts and shoes, and a woman reported that pressure applied to certain parts of her body helped her senses to work better.
Even though the sense of touch is often compromised by excessive sensitivity, it can sometimes provide the most reliable information about the environment for people with autism. Therese Joliffe, an autistic woman from England, preferred using touch to learn about her environment because it was easier to understand things through her fingers. Her vision and hearing were distorted and provided unreliable information, but touching something gave her a relatively accurate representation of the world. She learned to do things like setting a table by feel. She did not learn to put her shoes on the correct feet until somebody held her hands and had her run her fingers down her legs and along the sides of her feet and along her shoes. Doing this enabled her to learn what the right and left shoe looked like. She had to feel them before she could see them. Her method of learning was similar to that of a blind man whose vision was restored when he was an adult. In his essay «To See and Not to See,» Dr. Oliver Sacks described how this man had to touch things in order to see them with his eyes. For objects like houses, which were too big to be touched all over, he touched a model, which enabled him to see the real thing.
Touching can also be used to teach words. Therese Joliffe reported that she learned reading by feeling letters. Margaret Eastham describes in her book Silent Words how she taught her nonverbal son to read by having him feel sandpaper letters. Many totally nonverbal children with autism touch and smell things. Some constantly tap everything. They may be doing this to figure out where the boundaries are in their environment, like a blind person tapping with a cane. Their eyes and ears function, but they are not able to process incoming visual and auditory information.
I was always able to determine where my body ended and where the outside world began, but some people with autism have severe body boundary problems. If they cannot see their legs, then they do not know where they are. Jim Sinclair, a young man with autism, reports not being able to find his body. Donna Williams describes a fractured perception of her body in which she could perceive only one part at a time. Similar fracturing occurred when she looked at things around her. She could only look at one small part of an object at a time. Donna tapped rhythmically and sometimes slapped herself to determine where her body boundaries were. When her senses became overloaded with painful stimuli, she bit herself, not realizing that she was biting her own body.
Overly sensitive skin can also be a big problem. Washing my hair and dressing to go to church were two things I hated as a child. A lot of kids hate Sunday clothes and taking baths. But shampooing actually hurt my scalp. It was as if the fingers rubbing my head had sewing thimbles on them. Scratchy petticoats were like sandpaper scraping away at raw nerve endings. In fact, I couldn't tolerate changes in clothing altogether. When I got accustomed to pants, I could not bear the feeling of bare legs when I wore a skirt. After I became accustomed to wearing shorts in the summer, I couldn't tolerate long pants. Most people adapt in several minutes, but it still takes me at least two weeks to adapt. New underwear is a scratchy horror. I wear my bras until they are falling apart, and new ones require no fewer than ten washings to make them comfortable. Even today I prefer to wear them inside out, because the stitching often feels like pins pricking my skin. Parents can avoid many problems with sensory-induced tantrums simply by dressing kids in soft clothes that cover most of their body
Auditory Problems
When I was little, loud noises were also a problem, often feeling like a dentist's drill hitting a nerve. They actually caused pain. I was scared to death of balloons popping, because the sound was like an explosion in my ear. Minor noises that most people can tune out drove me to distraction. When I was in college, my roommate's hair dryer sounded like a jet plane taking off. Some of the sounds that are most disturbing to autistic children are the high-pitched, shrill noises made by electrical drills, blenders, saws, and vacuum cleaners. Echoes in school gymnasiums and bathrooms are difficult for people with autism to tolerate. The kinds of sounds that are disturbing vary from person to person. A sound that caused me pain may be pleasurable to another child. One autistic child may love the vacuum cleaner, and another will fear it. Some are attracted to the sound of flowing, splashing water and will spend hours flushing the toilet, while others may wet their pants in panic because the flushing sounds like the roar of Niagara Falls.
Children with autism often appear to be deaf. They respond to some sounds and not to others. Jane Taylor McDonnell reported in her book News from the Border that her autistic son was suspected of being deaf to
