Seeking things to smell

[Janet]

I am aware there are children who have pretty complex neurological and developmental issues, TS being the least of these. In these cases, the children are drawn to smelly objects, ie. feces, their own urine, etc... the children bring smelly objects to their noses and mouths...whether it be hands dirty with feces or urine, smelly socks, whatever. Pretty disturbing to the parents.

Anyone have any light to shed on this kind of activity?

[PJK]

Janet:

My son only has smelling sensitivity, this includes odd spices, fuel, wood stove smells that he finds repulsive and usually causes him to become ill.

perfume can cause the same reaction.

[Janet]

I tend to smell everything that I would potentially ingest ie food, drink, candy, etc or I won't put it in my mouth, hence the reason I have never tried lobster and I live in NFLD... I can't get past the smell.

I too am like your son and have smell sensitivities such as with garlic, perfumes, bleach, etc. On a good day they don't bother me on a bad day they can drive me to migraine city.

I was wondering if anyone could shed light on what would motivate these kids to need to smell foul things, seems to not be purposeful smelly as I would classify my need to smell.

If anyone has any experience with this then it would be great if you would share.

[cailean]

I hate the sense of smell. I also hate talking about it. I can barely read this thread because of it. OCD.

If I could give up my sense of smell, I would.

[Janet]

The parents whose children are demonstarting these behaviors are wondering how common this is. Has anyone ever heard of this type of behavior? Any insight could be beneficial.

[PJK]

Janet:

The first time I heard about this one was in the age group of 2 - 3 years. I do not recall that any child that was mentioned had medical concerns.

It was a fact though that they would put dirty diapers, toilet tissue, socks and even others underwear from the dirty clothes up to their noses.

The parents found it disturbing and repulsive. The children did not seem to click into the response. In time they out grew it.

Texture was a thing for my daughter when very young. Her diaper use to be introduced to the wall between 1 - 2 years of age. She also like to mix messes and smell them. She would shudder and then smell them again.

I always had to keep close watch on her because anything could be in her mixture.

She is going on 19 now, and very healthy emotionally, so I guess ours was a faze.

Good thing she does not venture on this forum...she'd shoot me for sharing this bit of her past.. :lol:

[lotraddicted]

I just started a thread on this! Wish I had come here first! lol

L smells everything he touches. His food, the fork, his socks, someone elses socks. His chore was to take out the garbage but I couldn't allow him to smell that so I changed his chore. People look at him funny when we go shopping because he has to smell everything that goes in the cart. It's become a bit of a joke at home now, whenever we lose anything L offers to find it by scent! lol

[Kraft]

This is a sensory thing, many T kids' senses are in constant over drive. Hence the touching, smelling, licking even sometimes, etc.

My son is starting to smell things, and I have noticed he has always loved strong smells, like gasoline and things like that.

I never did outgrow my need to smell things, although I can usually keep it in check now.

[Xelebes]

Smell. . .

Don't know how to put it because I have occasional urges to smell unpleasant things even as an adult. Don't really know how to put it, apart from that it smells strangely pleasant or soothing. I have no idea why.

Edit - I have AS.

[tourettetiger]

Some of us are hyposensitive, and crave sensory stimulus - smell is a sense...

Actually, I have a language disorder in my nose - sometimes I smell something and identify it incorrectly. Tested and confirmed!