Does your child melt down over scratchy clothing, cover their ears at everyday sounds, or refuse to eat foods because of texture? These strong reactions to ordinary things can be confusing and stressful for parents. Often, the root of these challenges lies in how a child’s brain processes sensory information.
My name is Patti Rutledge. I’m the co-owner of Sensational Development Occupational Therapy located on Long Island in New York. We often get calls from parents at our clinic asking us why their child reacts so strongly to certain events and sensations in the environment. To answer this, I want to take a moment to talk to you about sensory integration.
What Is Sensory Integration?
Sensory integration is something that happens without us even thinking about it. Our body is processing sensory information every millisecond of the day, and it just happens. Information comes in through our eyes, our ears, our internal signals in our body, and we make adaptive responses to that information without having to think about it.
When a child has a sensory integration dysfunction, they’re unable to do that. The information, the physical sensations that are coming in, gets turned to an electrical signal that is processed in the brain. For a child with a dysfunction, that signal is not being accurately identified or it is not going to the right area in the brain. This results in a very, very disorganized brain which, of course, leads to a very disorganized child.
What Are the Signs of a Sensory Integration Dysfunction?
There are so many signs of a sensory integration dysfunction, but they boil down to two main characteristics: children who are hyperresponsive, meaning they are very sensitive to the information they receive from their senses, and children who are hyporesponsive, meaning they are very insensitive to the information they receive from their senses.
Some of the most common areas where you might see hyperresponsive or hyporesponsive behaviors from your child include:
Tactile Processing (Sensation of Touch)
Hyperresponsive children tend to be tactically defensive. They don’t want to touch sand, they don’t want to touch grass. They don’t like their hands being messy. They get upset if their face is dirty.
Hyporesponsive children may not notice sensations at all. They might not feel anything on their hands or on their face. There are actually children that might actually get a cut and not even realize that they’re bleeding until you bring it to their attention.
Auditory Processing (Sense of Hearing)
We see children that have a hard time processing auditory information. They’re not choosing not to listen to you, they really don’t hear you. They have blocked out certain sounds in their environment.
Other children might startle at sounds in their environment. You might see them covering their ears because it’s too loud and they can’t handle certain sounds.
Or some children can’t focus when there are other sounds in the room. They might have a difficult time in a classroom setting. They might have a difficult time doing a written task because they might not be able to block out sounds like a clock ticking on the wall, for example.
Sense of Taste
We see so many children that are picky eaters, often because they can’t tolerate the texture of the food that they’re eating. And that obviously needs to be recognized very early on because not only is it going to impact them nutritionally, but it’s going to impact them socially. This is especially true as they get older, like when eating out with the family or going out to lunch with their peers.
Behavior Is a Form of Communication
We also get a lot of calls from parents who say, “I don’t know if it’s sensory, but my child has had a lot of really bad behaviors in school.” Behavior is a way of communicating. And when you’re having a really hard time keeping up with your peers or following the directions of your teacher, you might exhibit some different behaviors.
Behavior tells us so much. Children are not choosing to have a behavioral issue. They would be much happier if they were getting along with everything and the world was moving along just fine. But if they’re acting out, we have to look and see why they’re acting out. The behaviors might simply be to get out of the task that they find too difficult, and we have to listen to those cues to be able to address it.
Reach Out to Sensational Development for Expert Help
If you have any questions, or if you suspect that your child might have difficulty processing sensory information, feel free to call us at Sensational Development. We’d be more than happy to walk you through our consultation process and help you figure out what decisions to make to best help and support your child.
