The Gift of Sensory Disfunction
A pilot study by the STAR Institute found that the 35% of the children in one large sample (n=550) from a gifted and talented center exhibited symptoms of Sensory Processing Disorders. This is significantly more than the 5% that pilot studies have found in the general population.
Sensory Modulation Disorder (sensory over-responsivity, under-responsivity, and seeking) is the most common subtype of SPD in the gifted, but many gifted children also have dyspraxia, a form of Sensory-Based Motor Disorder
The higher the level of giftedness in a child, the more likely that introversion is linked with increased responsivity to pain, sound, touch, and smell.
The 'double-edged sword' of giftedness often bestows, among other features, a global heightened awareness to sensory stimulation, an endowment of amplified mental processing speed and attention capacity, and unusual challenges with frustration, pain, noise, and emotional hypersensitivity."
As many as one-third of gifted children may exhibit sensory processing disorder features, significantly impacting quality of life.
Being highly sensitive is a common experience for many, if not most, gifted people. It is related to intensity and excitabilities, such as emotional, intellectual and imaginary and sensory.
Their attention is drawn to stimuli others seem to ignore, which begins to explain why a highly gifted person might appear fidgety or edgy, adjusting and readjusting the thermostat, a sweater, or couch pillow.
This kind of ultra-awareness can be a valuable contributing factor to their qualitatively different experience of life in terms of heightened tone and color and meaning, not simply thin-skinned peevishness.
Yet the same sensory alertness can render the gifted person more vulnerable and uneasy, and may result in stimulation overload.
https://www.spdstar.org/basic/gifted
http://highability.org/911/high-sensitivity-gifted-adults-disorder/
As we all know, Autism is a spectrum disorder. No two people with autism are exactly alike. The reason why is because they all vary in the degree of their sensory processing dysfunction. Those with very mild auditory and/or visual dysfunction are generally classified as having Aspergers syndrome. Those with the most severe dysfunctions across all the senses are stuck with the label "severely autistic."
Then there are those who may be hyper sensitive in some senses and extremely hypo sensitive in one or more aspects of another. Think of Tommy, the pinball wizard. He could focus so well on the pinball machine because he could tune out all the other distractions around him. For him, they simply didn't exist.
The autistic savant who can sketch whole cities from memory, having only seen them once, has a hypo sensitive visual channel that allows him to tune out everything else but his visual memory how buildings and structures are arranged. He also has fine tuned hand eye coordination that allows him to draw very precisely.
The savant who can play music on the piano after only hearing it once has a hypo sensitive auditory channel when it comes to remembering and processing musical notes and how they fit together. He cannot speak, so we know his other senses must be compromised. But, as the research above tells us, this is the price one often has to pay for genius.