Ep. 58: Top Tips for Sensory Avoiders
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What defines a sensory avoider and how does the “small cup” metaphor explain it?
What's up everyone and welcome to Making the Shift for Autistic Kids.
We're an SLP couple from California with four boys. And we're here every week to bring
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and tools.
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Let's do this!
Hello, hello. Today we are talking about my top tips for sensory avoiders. This was a topic that was requested by a therapist who was working with the family. And as we'll be talking about today, and as you will be able to see, is when you have a sensory avoider in the family. It affects you every day. It truly does. And I will give you some personal examples of that. As one of my kids is a very obvious avoider. And that's something that, you know, we've been very conscious of for for a very long time and it is definitely something that affects us every day. It affects us every weekend. It affects how we plan our trips. It affects how we plan our trips to the grocery store. And I'll give you all those reasons why.
How does active regulation show up for sensory avoiders in the classroom?
Well, first of all, let's define what we call an avoider. So this is one of Winnie Dunn's sensation patterns. An avoider is someone who has a low threshold for sensory input. So we like to say they have a small cup. It only takes a little bit of sensory input for them to notice things. It only takes a little bit of sensory input for them to be overwhelmed or bothered by things. Okay, so little cup makes an avoider. The other key characteristic of an avoider is that they have active regulation. And what that means is that as soon as they are experiencing input that is uncomfortable for them or is bothering them, they are either trying to get out of there or they are trying to lessen or decrease or minimize that input in some way.
So child avoider in the classroom might look like the child who hears other kids scream and immediately covers their ears. It might look like the child who when there's a lot of commotion happening in the classroom, tries to escape from the classroom. So the main thing to know here, I mean two things to know here are they have a little cup, meaning it doesn't take a lot of sensory input for them to notice or be bothered. And two, they have active regulation. So once sensory input happens to them that is uncomfortable for them, they try to take immediate action. to make changes to the environment or to lessen or decrease the input. So that's what's important to know about what we would define as an avoider.
So the Most important thing, and I'm going to give you four different tips here for sensory avoiders.
Why is predictability and setting expectations the top tip for supporting avoiders?
Number one, and I mean this as number one as in probably top priority also. Predictability and setting expectations are your best friend. Avoiders need to know what is about to occur. They want to have a plan. They don't want to just like if you are an adult and you're an avoider, you're not just like if your friend calls you and says, Hey, there's a party tonight, do you want to go? You are not just like, Yeah, come in, let's go. Okay. You are the type of person who, first of all, you're probably gonna be like, I'll pass. Avoiders are really great at saying no. But if you are going to do something like that, it needs to be planned out. You want to know exactly what to expect. And that's because they just want to know what kind of environment am I going to be in?
How can I mentally prepare for this environment? So making things predictable. I'll give you an example of how we learned this a hard way, which was we decided to go to Disneyland as a family. How much fun, right? Taking my kids are actually old enough to remember. But no, that was not a good idea because my avoider son was not prepared. He had no idea what was gonna be there.
How can virtual tours and detailed previews prepare avoiders for trips like Disneyland?
He had no idea what the rides were gonna be like. You stand in these lines to go into these dark caves for the ride and you have no clue what's about to be there. Okay, that was not enjoyable for him. We learned that. And then the next time we went to another amusement park. And I didn't even know you could do this. You could go to YouTube. And you could take a virtual tour of a park.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What defines a sensory avoider and how does the “small cup” metaphor explain it?
0:08–1:14
2
How does active regulation show up for sensory avoiders in the classroom?
1:14–3:01
3
Why is predictability and setting expectations the top tip for supporting avoiders?
3:01–4:17
4
How can virtual tours and detailed previews prepare avoiders for trips like Disneyland?
4:17–5:27
5
What strategies help give sensory avoiders control while still participating in activities?
5:27–6:47
6
How do short‑duration sensory experiences and “cup‑size” limits affect activity planning?
6:47–8:15
7
Which calming tools and break routines keep avoiders regulated throughout the day?
8:15–9:26
8
How can parents teach self‑advocacy so sensory avoiders can voice their needs?
9:26–10:54
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
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Ep. 124 Building Rapport Isn’t Enough...How Therapists Become Part of the Intervention
Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)