Insistence on sameness for food space appropriation: An exploratory study on Brazilians with autism (self-)diagnosis in adulthood.
Insistence on sameness in food places is protective self-regulation for autistic adults, not behavior to eliminate.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Park-Cardoso et al. (2023) talked to 14 Brazilian adults who learned they are autistic after age 18.
They asked open questions about food places like restaurants and grocery stores.
The team wanted to know why these adults keep tight food routines that others call 'weird.'
What they found
Adults said strict food rules calm loud smells, bright lights, and not knowing what will happen.
They re-named their habits 'self-protection,' not problem behavior.
One person always eats the same seat at the same café. It lets him stay in the community.
How this fits with other research
Spackman et al. (2023) showed insistence on sameness splits into three parts in youth. JungJa et al. extend this work by showing adults use the same trait on purpose to cope.
Hamama et al. (2021) found grocery shopping is the top community outing autistic adults value. JungJa et al. explain why: familiar food spaces feel safe when life feels chaotic.
MacFarland et al. (2025) validated a short scale for ARFID in autistic adults. Their tool flags eating limits as risk. JungJa et al. flip the view—same limits can be helpful regulation, not illness.
Why it matters
If a client wants the same chair, menu, or checkout lane, see it as sensory armor, not inflexibility to fix. Let them pick the seat, bring a backup snack, or preview the store map. These cheap supports cut problem behavior without teaching 'compliance.' Honor the sameness and you keep the client in the community—exactly where they want to be.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Insistence on sameness is common in autistic individuals and continues into adulthood. Research shows it may be a way to cope with environments because of their sensory sensitivity, intolerance to uncertainty, and anxiety. Understanding the reasons for insistence on sameness from the perspective of autistic adults is important. To study the meanings of insistence on sameness for autistic adults, we interviewed 16 Brazilian autistic adults. All 10 formally diagnosed participants were diagnosed in adulthood. Six participants identified as being on the autism spectrum without formal diagnosis. During the interviews by email, we first asked about participants' experiences with autism diagnosis, either formal diagnosis or self-diagnosis. Then, we asked about their experiences in places for eating out and grocery shopping. We found they tended to always go to the same places and use protective accessories to eat or shop comfortably. But their such behaviors were considered weird habits, first by other people and later by themselves. While trying to control their weird habits because of social pressure, they often suffered anxiety and meltdowns. When they finally learned of their autism in adulthood, they began to better understand who they are and why they experience the environment differently from others. This new understanding taught them that their so-called weird habits are actually part of their authentically autistic ways to cope with the weirder world. This study suggests that autistic adults' insistence on sameness is an authentically autistic way to exercise their right to comfortably co-exist and live as human beings and as themselves.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2023 · doi:10.1177/13623613221121417