However, many people with autism also suffer from sensory sensitivity. While most people can process background stimulation (such as people chatting or noisy cars), people with autism struggle to integrate and ignore this sensory information – lights are more piercing, sirens are more shrill, taps sound like thuds, clock ticks sound like hammers and patterns become dazzling. This hypersensitivity can even extend to tastes and smells, which become overpoweringly intense. The experience can obviously be very distressing.