Tactile Sensitivity and Touch Preferences — Worksheet

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Tactile Sensitivity and Touch Preferences

Original source: Kristen-developed sensory worksheet/fact sheet. The original PDF is preserved above. This version keeps the useful reflection structure while updating the evidence and making the support choices more individualized.

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There is not one ADHD touch profile. You may avoid some kinds of touch, seek others, feel neutral about others, or notice that your preferences change with context and capacity. This worksheet is for learning your pattern—not deciding whether your response is “normal enough.”

1. Notice Which Touch Experiences Stand Out

Check anything that tends to pull your attention, feel uncomfortable, or become hard to ignore.

Clothing seams, tags, waistbands, bras, socks, or certain fabrics
Light or brushing touch
Firm pressure
Unexpected touch
Hugs or physical affection
Crowding or people standing close
A child or partner touching me repeatedly while I am doing something else
Grooming, hair care, skin care, or medical touch
Heat, cold, or pressure against my skin
Repetitive touch or several tactile sensations at once
Other:

Touch I tend to avoid:

Touch I tend to seek or enjoy:

Touch that is usually neutral for me:

2. Does the Kind of Touch Matter?

Notice whether these feel different rather than assuming all touch affects you the same way.

Self-touch: What is it like when I touch or scratch my own skin?

Touch from another person: What changes when someone else touches me?

Touch from objects or clothing: Which textures, pressure, or contact keep pulling my attention?

Expected versus unexpected touch: Does warning or consent change the experience?

Light versus firm touch: Is one easier, harder, or more organizing than the other?

The 2024 adult ADHD study found group differences during self-touch and touch from another person, but not in its object-touch control condition. That laboratory result should not be turned into a rule that objects or clothing cannot be difficult in daily life.

3. What Happens When Touch Becomes Too Much?

Check anything you notice.

I become distracted and cannot stop noticing it.
I feel irritated, tense, or restless.
I startle or pull away.
I want more space.
I have trouble listening, thinking, or staying with a task.
I feel an urge to change clothing or remove the sensation immediately.
I go still, shut down, or stop responding.
I do not notice the discomfort until it has built for a while.
I seek pressure, movement, texture, or another kind of input.
Other:

My earliest signs are:

4. What Changes My Tolerance?

Touch can feel different depending on the rest of the load you are carrying.

Does it change with:

poor sleep
stress or emotional strain
pain, migraine, illness, or skin irritation
hunger or fatigue
sensory overload from sound, light, smell, or crowds
menstrual-cycle or hormonal changes I have personally noticed
needing to focus or hold a lot in working memory
who is touching me and whether I want the contact
whether I was warned or asked first
how long the touch lasts
Other:

A pattern I notice:

5. Match the Support to the Actual Problem

Choose only what fits you.

Remove tags or choose clothing that does not keep demanding attention.
Keep a change of comfortable clothing available.
Ask people to warn me or ask before touching me.
Create more physical space when I am overloaded.
Choose the amount or type of pressure that feels better to me.
Take a sensory break before discomfort becomes severe.
Change a grounding or self-compassion exercise if hand-on-body touch feels unpleasant.
Use movement, texture, pressure, warmth, or no touch at all, depending on what helps.
Ask for a different approach during hair care, medical care, or other necessary touch.
Other:
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A sensory support is not automatically useful because it is popular. Weighted items, compression, fidgets, deep pressure, or other tools should be used only when they fit your actual preference and function.

6. Communicate the Preference

Try language that is specific enough to use in real life.

  • “Please ask before touching me.”
  • “I like hugs, but not when I’m overloaded.”
  • “I need a little more space right now.”
  • “Light touch is harder for me than firm pressure.”
  • “That fabric is distracting enough that I need to change.”
  • “I want to stay connected; I just do not want touch right now.”

A phrase that sounds like me:

7. Try One Small Change

A situation I want to make easier:

What I think is creating the tactile load:

One change I will test:

How will I know whether it helped?

8. Reflect and Adjust

After trying the change, ask:

  • Did I have more attention available?
  • Was I more comfortable or less depleted?
  • Did I stay engaged longer?
  • Did the change help only in some contexts?
  • Was touch actually the main problem, or was another sensory, emotional, physical, or relational factor involved too?
  • What would I keep, change, or stop next time?

When to Look Beyond ADHD

New, painful, rapidly changing, or severe touch sensitivity deserves assessment rather than being automatically attributed to ADHD. Skin conditions, pain, migraine, autism, trauma-related responses, medication effects, and other medical or neurological factors can also affect how touch feels.

Related Pages

Tactile Sensitivity and ADHD

ADHD and Sensory Sensitivity in Women

No access

Evidence Note

A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis found more sensory sensitivity, avoidance, seeking, and low registration in ADHD groups than control groups, but most included studies were in children and heterogeneity was high. A 2024 experimental study of 27 adults with ADHD and 24 controls found greater self-reported tactile sensitivity and several experimental differences in tactile processing. The adult study included 16 women with ADHD but was not designed to establish a women-specific effect, and symptom/touch correlations were significant across the combined sample rather than within the ADHD and control groups separately.

Frost-Karlsson et al., 2024 · Jurek et al., 2025

This worksheet is educational and is not a diagnostic tool.