ABSTRACT
A number of clinicians comment on the sensory vulnerability of children on the autism spectrum. The Asperger's infant may tend to focus on avoiding persecutory overstimulation and will thus have much less "mind space" to engage in the give and take and the nuances of nonverbal dialogue with the mother. Mother/infant dialogue may also be compromised by a lack of basic trust on the infant's part. The Asperger's infant may tend to experience the mother as unpredictably unable to prevent the infant from being overwhelmed by stimulation, or even as the mother herself in some measure being the source of the persecutory stimulation. If the mother of the Asperger's infant is able, in response to her infant's initial avoidance, to modulate downward the intensity of her communicative displays, then the way may be open for a positive experience by the infant.
