27/09/2026
“Aren’t you cold?”
Apparently. 😂
Temperature is another sense we don't talk about very often.
Thermoreception is our ability to recognise changes in temperature, both around us and within our own body.
And for some autistic people, that information doesn't always arrive in the way you might expect.
Someone might not realise they're cold until they're absolutely freezing.
They might wear a coat when everyone else is in a T-shirt.
Heat that seems perfectly manageable to somebody else might feel completely overwhelming.
Or they may struggle to recognise that feeling hot, uncomfortable or increasingly dysregulated actually means they need to cool down.
Like so many autistic sensory differences, it can go in either direction. We can be more sensitive, less sensitive, or experience it differently at different times.
So the child refusing their coat might genuinely not feel cold.
And the person desperate to open every window might genuinely be experiencing the room very differently from you.
We're standing in the same temperature.
That doesn't mean our bodies are experiencing it in the same way.
Mandy Cook
The Autistic Teacher
