Perception in autism is associated with positive emotions and intense interests, but sensory hypersensitivity represents a limited and poorly representative aspect of what characterizes autistic perception, which is a strength. An enhanced role of perception contributes to written and oral language learning, and to higher-order intelligence. However, perceptual atypicalities are highly domain- and individual-specific, which makes it risky to elaborate general physiological models of autistic perception in the current state of knowledge and phenotype delineation.
Keywords: Autism; Enhanced Perceptual Functioning; perception; sensitivity.