Autism Part – By Kisean Joseph
Autism Part Creating Sensory
As Autism Awareness Month continues, Observer Media sat down with Dr. Shivon Belle-Jarvis for the first installment of Autism and Me — a series dedicated to deepening public understanding of autism and its everyday realities.
She started with something fundamental: autism shapes how a person perceives and interacts with the world, and for the roughly 90 percent of autistic individuals who process their senses differently, that reality carries profound daily consequences.
Sensory processing differences, she explained, fall broadly into two categories — hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity — and some individuals experience both. Understanding the distinction, Dr. Belle-Jarvis said, is the first step toward building genuinely inclusive environments.
She was also quick to expand the conversation beyond the five senses most people default to. Sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are only part of the picture — balance, spatial awareness, and the body’s internal states, such as hunger, thirst, and temperature, matter just as much.
Dr. Belle-Jarvis then walked through each category in detail.
Hypersensitivity, she said, means a person is far more sensitive to stimuli than most. Ordinary noise can feel overwhelming; bright or flashing lights cause discomfort; clothing textures and tags can be a constant source of irritation; certain foods may be entirely intolerable. Hypersensitive individuals are often described as sensory avoiders — covering their ears in noisy rooms, shielding their eyes in well-lit spaces, resisting haircuts or toothbrushing, and refusing certain foods. These, she emphasized, are not behavioral choices but neurological responses.
Hyposensitivity, by contrast, means reduced sensitivity. A person may not register sounds at normal volumes, miss their name being called, or feel so under-stimulated that distress sets in. This can manifest as sensory-seeking behavior — constant movement, spinning or jumping, crashing into objects, making loud repetitive sounds, or touching everything in reach. Poor pain response, Dr. Belle-Jarvis noted, can increase the risk of injury.
Environments that challenge autistic persons, she said, include supermarkets, classrooms, churches, and social gatherings — and even the home can be overwhelming. With that, she offered practical guidance for creating sensory safe zones:
- Plan ahead for new environments and allow for breaks as needed.
- Follow the individual’s lead — meltdowns and withdrawal are responses to an overwhelmed nervous system, not defiance.
- Clothing matters — seamless, tagless garments, compression wear, weighted vests, and hoodies with built-in headphones can all reduce daily distress.
- Be flexible and patient — sensory thresholds shift throughout the day.
- Seek occupational therapy, and recognize the need for more OT practitioners in Antigua and Barbuda.
- Keep a sensory diary to track triggers and identify what helps.
- Communicating expectations before entering stimulating environments — predictability reduces anxiety.
- Simplify the classroom — reduce wall décor, offer frequent breaks, incorporate tactile play, and maintain a calm corner with preferred items.
- Adjust sound in churches and public venues — a modest reduction in volume costs little but can mean a great deal.
- Do not judge — what appears disruptive is frequently sensory in origin.
Dr. Belle-Jarvis closed with a message for the wider public. “Together, these adjustments — small in isolation, transformative in combination — can make Antigua and Barbuda meaningfully more inclusive for autistic persons and their families, ” she said.
