If sensory issues can be present without autism..

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I guess I'll have to look into that.

Sensory issues are not well-defined in ASD or SPD.
There are likely differences as more research is done.
I lean towards lack of social cognition => autism.
That fits best for me.
I have sensory differences and likely differences in general information processing too, but lack of social cognition should define autism, as it was originally identified by Kanner and Asperger.
Sensory differences and general information processing differences may cause autistic traits, but autism still has common core of social cognition problems from earliest development, and of course social cognition feeds back on sensory and information, so all are related.

I agree.



You might find this paper, describing Autism as a disorder of Complex Information Processing <click> helpful.

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For me personally, my testing revealed low Executive Function for unstructured situations (which the psychologist indicated was caused by a deficiency of complex working memory). So, I am still trying to understand precisely why this impacts my ability to establish and maintain close relationships with people. I believe it has to do with something as basic as an inability to engage in ad hoc conversations with others (which, if you think about it, is a very complex, unstructured activity). I am guessing that anyone with significant sensory issues would have similar problems (as that too would introduce way too much interference).

So, my current belief is that this basic flaw in information processing led to a series of bad social experiences when I was younger -- beginning at least as early as nursery school (and possibly earlier) and continuing through elementary school, middle school and high school -- that led me to take on certain strategies (perhaps in the form of a personality disorder) as a means for coping with these very basic deficiencies. I am simply speculating here, because I cannot imagine how simply having issues with information processing has led to the person I have become. I am suspecting (at least for today) that it was how I learned to cope in a very complex, unstructured world.

Sorry for the tangent, but this thread really has allowed me to think through many thoughts that have been spinning in my head for the past several months.

Yep, me too. What you described basically sounds like me. I have a poor ability to handle unstructured situations, especially spontaneous conversations and chit chat. And I do better with something rehearsed or scripted, but I still struggle to remember my lines and find the appropriate timing to say them.

Sensory problems do make it worse. I have such a hard time distinguishing voices from other sounds so a lot of the time I only understand bits and pieces of what someone said, so I am just trying to fill in the blanks in my mind almost like doing a mad lib puzzle. And because I am overwhelmed by everything my senses are taking in, I tend to withdraw my awareness closer and closer to my body.

So like if a person speaks to me in passing, and they are more than a few feet away, I have no idea what they said, or if they are even talking to me or not. I have to recalibrate my awareness back out to that distance, and isolate the voice from the background noise before I can even start thinking about understanding the content of the message or what I might say in response. I feel like I need to have a sound engineer working in my head full time.

I don't know, when I think about it that way, I'm not even sure which comes first, the sensory problems or the memory problems. Maybe the sensory stuff is just maxing out my working memory.

A person gets diagnosed with sensory processing disorder when they have the sensory issues but do not achieve the recommended scores for autism.

If a person scores high on an autism test with sensory issues then they have autism with the encompassing feature of sensory integration disorder.

It's like all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.