Your Questions arising from the previous page:

(1) “There must be more to autism than just Withdrawal due to OverSensitivities ! ” I hear you say.
(I might reply, “how sensitive must your brain be to do this: (click the hieroglyphs below to see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVqRT_kCOLI
How much “information overwhelm” must you be getting?)

Here is a personal example. One morning my son and I opened the front door and looked out. Not more that two seconds had passed before he said: “What’s that?”, pointing to the distant telephone pole.

Closer up you can see what he saw:
a newly-dead possum dangling from the apex of the telegraph pole

(I might add that I took the second photograph from an angle that shows the possum off much more easily than was possible from our view from the front porch) – What sort of visual acuity/ OverSensitivity do you need to do this?
He is taking everything in, all at once, in extraordinary detail.

Question (2): “What about my child who was ‘neurotypical’ at birth but regressed?”
Answer: I believe there was always a propensity to be oversensitive, even at birth, but as your child’s brain connections developed as he.she got older,the sensory overwhelm also increased, leading to more frequent retreat from the Real World.

Question (3): “What about my child who has Under-Sensitivities?”
Answer: On page 5 I discuss Temple Grandin’s undersensitivity to touch (and how it still comes back to her earlier over-sensitivity.) Further examples are given on this page.

Back to Question (1) “ Is that all there is to higher levels of autism ??”
Essentially – Yes.
However it is worth mentioning at this point that the brain may not need to be hypersensitive in just one area:
(a) the brain may be more Intense overall, so the Child becomes absorbed in own mind, usually demonstrated by intense self-talk. Naturally that high- intensity adds to Own World orientation.
(b) the generally-overactive brain may produce an “uneven-Intensity”,  confusing the issue of  what is “important” to take notice of,  leading to Confusion about everything, again leading to greater return to Own World to work things out.

You can read more about these two on page 6 of this “How it Starts” Section.

On the next page we will do some “personal experiencing” of oversensitivity.