Rainman screaming in the shower

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In the movie Rainman, an iconic scene is when Rainman starts screaming in the shower.

Is this because he's hypersensitive to water or heat?

based on what he was screaming out loud ("hot water burn baby!!") it would appear to be the combo of excessive heat and water.

I remember this film. So what happened was, after his little brother was born, there was an incident in which he apparently did something that would have led to his little brother being scalded. He is repeating what was said to him at the time i.e. echolalia. This was one of a number of incidents, perhaps the decisive one, that led to him being placed in custodial care (and to his brother growing up ignorant of his existence).

thank you for the explanation. very sad.

I should watch this movie again. An early depiction of autism in the movies, is interesting, even if not accurate for many.

Most people would scream in pain if the water in their shower was too hot. That is a normal and healthy reaction.
It's only when you're ND that every way you react to things is suddenly abnormal.

It's because of that movie and the way autism in general is shown in the media that people still think we're all oversized babies in diapers who somehow can take old radios apart and then put them back neatly together but can't speak simple sentences or chew our own food. And unless we do have some incredible savant skill, which most of us don't, we're nothing but a burden on family and society.

In the film he has a emotional reaction to the hot water. His brother was Charlie. Rainman (Raymond) had hurt Charlie when Charlie was a baby by mistake, and Raymond was a small boy. Charlie was scalded by hot water - perhaps Raymond had tried to bathe his younger brother Charlie, then got yelled at. The later reaction to the water was a kind of PTSD (when both were adults) over reaction because he was reminded of the trauma of all the yelling that happened surrounding the original incident. Autism can be associated with PTSD for a number of reasons. One is hypersensitivities. Another is situational - people on the spectrum tend to get into traumatic situations more often than NT because of misreading social queues. Rainman as depicted in the movie is a savant. He has great mental capabilities in some areas but lacks common sense and may have a below average IQ outside of his special narrow skills. He can accurately count spilled matches at a glance but what asked how much a car costs he says “about $100” and gives the same answer to any other question about costs of things even a small thing like a candy bar. His below average IQ and lack of common sense may have resulted in the accident with the hot water. It also results in Charlie starting to make a new connection with Raymond as he realizes they had shared experiences that shaped them both as Raymond was institutionalized and never talked about after the incident which Charlie was too young to remember. Raymond feels guilty that he hurt his baby brother. Charlie feels guilty that in a way he was the cause of Raymond being sent away.

The character is loosely based on Kim Peek

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek