Last Sunday night my son (with autism) was taking a bath at my mom's apartment.. he was just playing in the water for a while..my mom and husband went in to check on him. They remarked the water was getting cold. My son did not care or seem to notice. I was relating to my step-dad the first thing that tipped me off that something was wrong was him falling and getting hurt. He was about 2.. 2 1/2 at the time. He did not cry at all or even notice he was hurt. I had wondered out loud if the insensitivity to temperature in general was related to his hypo-sensitiveness (to the pain) he had when he was younger. Well I got to talking to another parent on Facebook that has a child with autism.. and I asked her if they were related. She said Absolutely! My son now has been sensitized to pain thankfully.
Looking back over the past few weeks, I have realized that my son will react either to something very hot or something very cold. He does not seem to feel anything in between. If I tell him something is hot, he will say 'it is not cold' or if it is cold he will say "it is not hot". His bathwater is usually warmer than what I think is safe or comfortable or colder than I would be comfortable with.
I am going to talk to his teacher next week.. and possibly his Occupational Therapist to see what can be done to help with this.
