Habituation, Adaptation and Prediction Processes in Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Comprehensive Review.

Waldron et al. (2023) pulled together every paper they could find on habituation, adaptation, and prediction in autism, ADHD, and schizophrenia. They did not run new tests. They read, grouped, and mapped how well each diagnosis dampens down repeating sights, sounds, or touches.

The goal was to see if slow habituation and weak neural adaptation could explain why many clients insist on sameness and miss small changes.

Across dozens of studies, people with ASD, ADHD, or schizophrenia kept showing the same pattern: their brains stayed alert to stimuli that most minds already tagged as old news. The review links that sticky brain state to everyday rigidity and change-detection slips.

In plain words, the ‘same old’ never feels old, so the world always feels too loud, too bright, or too new.

Redquest et al. (2021) used skin sensors and brain scans to prove autistic listeners need longer to tune out repeating beeps. A et al. weave that finding into their bigger story.

Liu (2025) adds a twist: pre-attentive circuits work fine, but once attention is required, the change marker fades. The review folds that stage-by-stage picture into its habituation map.

van Laarhoven et al. (2019) show the self-talk loop is also broken; autistic clients do not dampen sounds they make themselves. A et al. slot that motor-auditory gap under the same prediction-error umbrella.

You now have a concrete story to share with parents and teachers: the child is not ‘choosing’ to over-react; the sensory brake pedal is late. Use that frame to justify slow, repeated exposure programs, warn against sudden schedule swaps, and select objective brain or skin measures to track progress instead of relying only on caregiver reports.