Demystifying Sensory Processing: Understanding Your Child’s Sensory World
Understanding Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is crucial for parents and educators so that they can support the sensory needs of their children or students. Imagine a world where everyday sights, sounds, and textures feel overwhelming. This is the reality for many children with SPD. It impacts how the brain processes sensory information, leading to challenges with everyday activities like getting dressed, eating, or tolerating loud noises.
By recognising a child's sensory profile including their sensitivities and sensory preferences, we can create a more supportive environment. We now offer Sensory Assessments to help you understand your child's Sensory Profile. This post aims to provide an understanding of SPD to help you navigate the wonderful world of sensory processing with your child.
The Symphony of Our Senses: Understanding Sensory Processing
Sensory processing is the foundation for how we experience the world. It is the amazing behind-the-scenes work our brain does to take in information from all our senses and turn it into a meaningful experience of the world around us. It's like a symphony conductor receiving signals from the various instruments (our senses) and weaving them together into a harmonious composition.
These instruments, that are made up from the eight sensory systems, help us navigate daily activities. Each instrument plays its role as follows:
- The Classic Five:
- Visual (Sight): Our eyes take in information about shapes, colours, and movement, allowing us to navigate the visual world.
- Auditory (Hearing): Our ears pick up sound waves, which our brain interprets as sounds like voices, music, and traffic noise.
- Olfactory (Smell): Specialised receptors in our nose detect smells, allowing us to enjoy pleasant aromas and also alerting us to potential dangers like smoke.
- Gustatory (Taste): Taste buds on our tongue detect different flavours like sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami, influencing our food choices.
- Tactile (Touch): This system, spread throughout our skin, helps us feel textures, temperatures, and pain, allowing us to interact safely with our environment.
- The Supporting Players:
- Vestibular (Balance and Movement): Our vestibular system is located in our inner ear, this system is responsible for our sense of balance and equilibrium. It helps us stay upright and coordinated, essential for activities like walking and riding a bike.
- Proprioceptive (Spatial Awareness, force and pressure): Our proprioceptive system uses receptors in our muscles and joints to tell us where our body parts are in space. It allows us to perform actions like walking, grasping objects, and judging force, crucial for daily tasks.
- Interoception (internal sensations): The interoception system focuses on internal sensations from our body, including hunger, thirst, a full bladder and even our emotions. It helps us to maintain internal body regulation, influencing our need for food, water and rest.
All these instruments work together in harmony and play a crucial role in how our brain processes sensory information in our daily lives. Helping us to:
- Navigate our environment safely: Knowing how hot a stove is or if the ground is uneven relies on tactile and proprioceptive input.
- Learn and focus: Filtering out background noise (auditory) and maintaining visual attention are essential for concentration in class.
- Interact with others: Understanding the appropriate pressure for a hug or handshake depends on tactile and proprioceptive processing.
Just like the conductor controls the volume and tempo of the orchestra, sensory processing lets us filter information to help navigate daily activities like:
- Filtering out background noise to focus on a teacher's voice in a classroom (auditory).
- Feeling safe and secure while swinging on a playground (vestibular).
- Knowing where our limbs are in space to avoid bumping into things (proprioception).
- Recognising the texture of our clothes and feeling comfortable getting dressed (tactile).
When the Symphony Goes Out of Tune: Sensory Processing Difficulties
Difficulties with sensory processing can manifest in various ways, depending on the child and the specific sensory system involved this is called Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD).
Here are some examples to help you understand what sensory processing disorder might look like:
- Auditory: A child might find loud noises overwhelming, struggle to filter out background noise, or be overly sensitive to specific sounds.
- Visual: A child might be bothered by bright lights, struggle with focusing on close work, or find visually stimulating environments overwhelming.
- Tactile: A child might dislike certain textures, feel uncomfortable with some clothes and fibres, dislike hugs or other forms of touch, or crave intense sensory input like rough textures or deep pressure.
- Vestibular: A child might avoid activities like spinning or swinging, feel dizzy easily, or have difficulty with balance and coordination.
- Proprioception: A child might have difficulty with tasks like handwriting due to poor awareness of hand position, seem clumsy or uncoordinated, or have trouble judging the force of their movements.
By understanding the role of sensory processing and how it can be impacted by SPD, we can create supportive environments and strategies, like a sensory diet, to help children navigate their unique sensory world. To help tailor a sensory diet for your child or yourself we recommend you get a Sensory Assessment by an O.T. who can provide a Sensory Profile.
Understanding Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)
Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is a condition where the brain has difficulty receiving and responding to information from the senses. Imagine the beautiful symphony of our senses – in SPD the conductor struggles to interpret some of the instruments, leading to sensory overload or a lack of response. While not a formally recognised diagnosis in the DSM-5, SPD is estimated to affect 5-10% of children. Lucy Jane Miller, author of Sensational Kids, highlights that the prevalence of SPD is even higher in children who are gifted and or neurodivergent (such as Autism or ADHD).
To fully understand sensory processing disorder, it's important to distinguish between sensory sensitivities and typical responses. Typically, sensory information helps us understand the world. For example, a loud noise might make us turn our head, or a soft blanket feels comforting. However, children with SPD might experience these same sensations in a more extreme way.
To make things tricky, there are actually three subtypes of SPD, each affecting how a child processes sensory information.
Three Subtypes of Sensory Processing Disorder
- Sensory Modulation Disorder: This is like having malfunctioning volume controls on the sensory instruments. Children with this subtype might struggle to regulate sensory input. They might be:
- Hypersensitive: Overwhelmed by everyday sights, sounds, touches, smells, or tastes. Imagine a child finding the sound of a ticking clock unbearable.
- Hyposensitive: Craving intense sensory experiences, like seeking out rough textures, loud noises, or constant movement. Think of a child who loves to jump off high places or constantly chews on objects.
- Sensory-Based Motor Disorder: This subtype impacts how the brain integrates sensory information to plan and execute movements. Children with this subtype might have difficulty:
- Planning and coordinating movements: Appearing clumsy or uncoordinated and finding tasks like catching a ball or tying shoelaces challenging.
- Maintaining good posture and balance: This can appear as slouching, difficulty keeping the head up when seated at a table or the inability to balance on one leg.
- Judging force challenges here looks like handwriting difficulties or bumping into things.
- Sensory Discrimination Disorder: Imagine having difficulty distinguishing between instruments in the orchestra. Children with this subtype might struggle to differentiate between similar sensory experiences:
- Visual: Difficulty distinguishing between similar shapes or letters.
- Auditory: Problems telling the difference between similar sounds like "b" and "d."
- Tactile: Inability to distinguish between textures like wool and cotton.
- Interoception: Not being able to identify or recognise feelings in the body. For example, unable to recognise when one is full, needs to go to the toilet, or unsure what their emotions mean.
Understanding these subtypes can help identify the specific challenges a child with SPD faces and develop targeted strategies and sensory diets to support them.
Sensory Tools Available in Australia
Sensory Play Store offers a range of sensory toys that provide the necessary input to help your child stay regulated throughout the day. By incorporating tools such as fidget toys, weighted blankets, and sensory swings, parents and educators can offer consistent and targeted sensory experiences that meet a child's specific needs. These tools not only aid in managing sensory processing difficulties but also promote focus, reduce anxiety, and improve overall well-being.
Below are some examples of sensory toys that support each sensory system. This information is general in nature. It is always best to seek the advice from a professional therapist regarding the best sensory tools for your child's sensory diet.
|
Visual Tools for sight |
|
| Auditory Tools for listening |
|
| Olfactory Tools for smell |
|
| Gustatory Tools for oral motor | |
| Tactile Tools for touch - fidgets |
|
| Vestibular Tools for balance and movement or gross motor |
|
| Proprioceptive Tools for body awareness and calming |
|
| Interoception tools for internal sensations and emotional regulation |
|
Stay tuned as we further unpack SPD and what tools and strategies can support individuals with SPD.