Sense of Smell

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Smell is apparently the least sensitive scent in autistic people.

However, my sense of smell is super strong. In fact, smelling things that I like is a stim of mine (eg: new books, my cat). When it comes to bad smells though, I will gag on them. Bacon is an example of a smell I detest.

There was a study that came out last year saying that autistic children don't react to smell.

Any thoughts?

My sense of smell is very poor.

Don't some have strong smell? My old therapist asked if I was very sensitive to smells, but I said no, because usually my sense of smell seems weak compared to others. Though, there are smells that definitely bother me.

I wonder if not seeing recognizable reactions from the autistic kids studied is more likely.

My nose works just fine.

I have no comparison point to know if my sense of smell is more or less than that of other people; all I know is it's quite important to me as I get a lot of simple pleasure out of things like the smell of books or my favorite scents.

I can verify sense of smell.

It's one of my hypersensitive areas. Strong odors of any kind can become overpowering if I am exposed to long. I can't stand perfumes or colognes anywhere near me. The smell of fish makes me gag and eggs can as well though the egg one had faded over the last year

I can also smell some things others either don't or don't consciously notice.

Examples, burning wires on a generator 40 feet from me, through a rain storm.

Cockroachs from 10 to 15 feet (estimate, never actually measured)

I can tell from my wife's body odor that her menstruation is coming days in advance

These last 3 examples don't bother me in terms of stress, but they can be distracting, especially the cockroachs as I have to hunt the bastard down and kill it or I can't focus.

I think my sense of smell is very strong. When I'm not feeling great (which is quite often) I become extremely sensitive to smells. Even pleasant ones can start to bother me. I also often find the smell of food cooking quite overpowering. On the other hand, I do have a strange tendency to smell almost everything I come across.

I'd say my least sensitive sense is taste. For me, eating seems to be far more about smell than taste.

I have a really good sense of smell - and one of my stims is smelling a little bag of lavender. Mostly, though, it's just distracting as most overpowering smells just make me feel sick.

My sense of smell is very strong. I get very bothered by bad scents.

They say my sense of smell is like a dog's. It's a sense I use a lot in identifying people, places and things.

Mine is below average I believe.

I don't have a very good sense of smell. I hardly ever notice smells, and when people say something stinks, I don't usually notice anything.

The thing with sensory differences with autism is that the sense tend to be wildly different from what is typical, but not necessarily in a consistent way. I rarely smell anything but very strong smells, but other people I know who are autistic are super-sensitive.

Smelling a new book is one of life's true great pleasures!

I hate certain smells like bacon,honey,and cat litter but pages from a new book smell so good.

I find the smell of books so wonderful that part of my reading habits is to every so often just stick my nose right into the book for an intake of the smell, before continuing my reading. I try not to do it in public, but I love to do that at home. I seriously love the smell and the feel of books almost as much I love reading the content itself.