How to Make Your Home More Sensory-Friendly for Autistic Individuals

As I’ve been exploring my autism for a full year now, I’ve learned a lot about the importance of having a sensory-friendly home. Today, I’ll share my findings with you in the hopes that it’ll help you find some new tools to be more comfortable at home. Due to the anxiety associated with loud noises, bright lights, and some textures, autistic people can find what should be the safest of safe spaces—home—overwhelming and stressful. By better understanding general sensitivities, and exploring your own and those of your family, you can create a home that meets your needs.

Minimize Noise

Have you ever seen those clips where they’re remodeling a house and they rip up the carpet in the living room, exposing beautiful hardwood floors beneath? Someone always asks the question, “Why would you cover up this beautiful floor with carpet?” Probably undiagnosed autism. When your own voice echoes in any room with bare wooden floors, you don’t want to spend time in that room. When that’s your living room, it should be no surprise that someone would opt to hide the noisy floor beneath quiet carpet. I have my streaming and gaming setup in my living room, with hard parquet floors, so I picked up a large rug that sits under my desk and chair. I also made sure to get one with long carpet fibers for the feeling between my toes, but I’ll touch on that a bit later in this post.

You can’t put carpet on the walls, but at least you can hang things. Flat walls reflect sound, but when you have picture frames and those inspirational quotes from Homesense, they can help bounce the sound around, making the sound reflection less intense. One day, I’ll add acoustic foam to the walls in my streaming corner—but for now, I have a couple of cloth posters which are still flat, but at least the cloth absorbs some of the noise.

We use thick curtains on our windows, and while it’s because of light—not noise—I’ve found they also work to dampen the sounds of cars (our windows face the parking lot) and random teenagers walking around at midnight.

Control Light

I spoke in a previous post about my dimming switch at work, but what works at work can work at home too. I prefer dimming switches to using less luminous bulbs, as there are times I want brighter lights—like when cooking or cleaning. In lieu of dimmable lights, I find lamps to be a valuable tool as well. I have a lamp in my bedroom so at night I can have a more peaceful environment for reading before bed.

Blackout curtains aren’t just for third shift workers. They’re also great at reducing the amount of light pollution that comes in bedroom windows for those of us who live in busy cities. But a key to using blackout curtains is they need to be put up in such a way that they don’t block natural light when it is wanted. Mine use a tension bar, so I can simply take them down in the morning when I get up.

I haven’t tested those smart bulbs that I see at Canadian Tire all the time—but my understanding is they work similar to dimmer switches, but controllable through an app. Maybe also a good idea?

Textures aren’t just for Food 

I mentioned the parquet floors in my living room. My bedrooms are carpeted, but it’s that basic, easy-to-clean carpet that doesn’t offer much in the way of sensory experiences. I use rugs in the living room to reduce room echo, but also one next to the patio door, the air conditioner, and a lamp to provide a climate-controlled reading nook. If it’s warm and raining out, the patio door gives both a warm breeze and the sound of rain. If it’s cold and snowing, a soft blanket might be appropriate. The rug itself has long, thick fibers and feels great to sit or lie on—I’ve even slept on it when I was too tired to get up, and despite it being right on the floor, it wasn’t the worst sleeping experience I’ve ever had.

When we go shopping for clothes, one of the first things we inspect is tags. Every autistic person knows what scratchy tags look and feel like, so when clothes use scratchy tags, we avoid. This revelation has allowed us to expand our wardrobe considerably. Though you still couldn’t pay me to wear a wool sweater. The thought of it makes me cringe at all the childhood Christmas visits where I had to wear the hand-knit sweater my grandmother had given me three years ago, that I still somehow hadn’t outgrown.

Socks always optional at home, unless someone breaks glass. Even broken glass doesn’t necessitate socks—rather, slippers for a few days while we find any stragglers. Too many glassy feet over the years to risk it again.

Cozy Corners or Calming Spaces

I’ve also spoken anecdotally about my love of the idea of cozy corners, though the practicality is a challenge in my current home. The basic idea of a cozy corner is a quiet, sensory-friendly space in the home where one can go to relax. It helps manage meltdowns and can prevent shutdowns. A cozy corner wouldn’t be complete with fidget toys or other stimming tools, a weighted blanket or plushy, and limited light. I like to make sure there is access to light for reading, but nothing direct.

As mentioned, space is limited in my current home, so a cozy corner isn’t feasible. Instead, we’ve decided that my bedroom is our calming space. I have a king-sized bed, and have it equipped with pillows with different firmness and pillowcase textures. I have two blankets—one soft, one rough. And I have a crunchy sheet—I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s not soft and smooth. it’s kind of textured. There’s a bright bedroom light as well as a lamp—each with different temperature bulbs. The bedside table has storage for sensory toys and books, and is big enough to hold a cup of water.

The key with the calming space or cozy corner is having input from its users. My son and I like that we have a choice of blanket—neither is offensive to senses, but our needs change and it’s nice to have options. We discussed the possibility of including snacks in the calming space, but ultimately determined that putting food together with a calming environment might encourage disordered eating—I have struggled with an eating disorder for years, and I am always concerned about passing that to my kids. So we only drink water, and if we want a snack we go to the kitchen/dining area and enjoy it there. My take on this is that a cozy corner should be 100% beneficial, and I fear that eating while in a shutdown or near-shutdown state could complicate that. I also just don’t like sleeping on crumbs, so it’s win-win.

The next addition to our cozy corner is going to be a rocking chair. My son has been asking for a rocking chair since kindergarten, and I got him a patio swing chair, but he can’t use it in the winter or on really hot summer days. That doesn’t stop him from trying—but he needs to give up pretty quick. He will sit on the patio with a pile of books, swinging and reading. I don’t spend a lot of time in furniture stores, so I haven’t seen many rocking chairs. But maybe it’s time to venture out and find one.

In Closing

By implementing these strategies in your own home, you can make an autistic-friendly home without any major sacrifices. And if it wasn’t clear, these can all benefit adults just as much as children. I use my calming space all the time—just cleaned the kitchen? Time to wrap myself in a blanket, prop my pillow up under my chest, and read a book about vampires, or witches, or assassin sorcerers. Maybe one day it’ll be a book with all three of those things.