Diagnostic validity of sensory over-responsivity: a review of the literature and case reports.

Reynolds et al. (2008) looked at three kids who showed extreme reactions to everyday sounds, lights, or touch. The team asked: could these reactions be a brand-new diagnosis all by themselves? They wrote up each child’s story and checked if the signs matched any known condition.

The paper is a set of case reports, not a big experiment. It gives real-life detail but no numbers to generalize from.

Two of the three children did not fit neatly into autism, ADHD, or anxiety labels. The authors say this hints that sensory over-responsivity might one day stand alone as its own diagnosis. They stress the proof is still “very preliminary.”

Northrup et al. (2022) widened the lens. They tracked parent reports from over four thousand autistic youth and found six in ten currently show auditory over-responsivity. This large survey turns the rare picture from 2008 into a common everyday finding.

McQuaid et al. (2024) push the timeline further. Their survey of middle- and older-aged autistic adults shows sensory over-responsivity remains strong across the lifespan. The 2008 pediatric hint now looks like a lifelong trait, not a short childhood phase.

Eggleston et al. (2018) add nuance. In preschoolers with autism, they uncovered four clear sensory subtypes. Sensory over-responsivity is just one of them. This suggests the 2008 cases may capture only a slice of a broader sensory landscape.

For you at the clinic, the takeaway is to keep sensory questions on your intake form even when autism is not yet diagnosed. Use the large-scale rates from Northrup et al. (2022) to justify full sensory screens, borrow subtype language from Eggleston et al. (2018) to shape supports, and remember that adults may still report the same issues per McQuaid et al. (2024). The 2008 paper alone was too thin to act on; paired with later work, it now signals a routine assessment step you can start today.