Our senses are the gateways to the world, allowing us to perceive and interact with the environment in intricate ways. It is important that parents/guardians, clinicians, and teachers have an understanding of a child’s sensory patterns and furthermore, their needs!
We have many different sensory systems, these include;
Tactile which interprets sensations related to touch, pressure, temperature, and pain.
The vestibular sense contributes to our sense of balance, spatial orientation, and coordination of movements. Our auditory system which doesn’t only enables us to hear but also plays a crucial role in our ability to communicate.
Our visual sense enables us to perceive and interpret the world through the sense of sight.
The olfactory sense detects and identify various smells in our environment, influencing our perceptions, memories, and even emotions.
Lastly is proprioception which is the ability to perceive the position, movement, and orientation of our body parts without relying on visual or auditory input.
An important topic that goes hand in hand with a child’s sensations is self-regulation. Self-regulation is the ability to understand and manage behaviour and your reactions to feelings and things happening around you. It includes being able to: regulate reactions to strong emotions like frustration, excitement, anger and embarrassment. To have the ability to calm down after something exciting or upsetting has occurred. For some children, some environments such as school or the shops can be an overstimulating and therefore an overwhelming environment.
There are different categories to a child’s sensory patterns (Winnie Dunn, 2007).
Seeking: a Seeker is one who has a high threshold to sensations. Seekers enjoy sensation, and they really want more sensation and do things to get more. These are ways people add more sensation to their everyday experiences. Activities seekers may enjoy new textures such as slime, music and colours.
Avoiding: Avoiders have low thresholds. In comparison to seekers avoiders try to get less sensory input. Their brains are geared to detect a lot of input, but they have low thresholds, so every piece of input is potentially seen as harmful or threatening. The less unpredictable input they get, the better they feel. Avoiders can thrive of routine and order and limited surprises.
Sensitivity: Sensitivity is also a low sensory threshold like avoiding. People with sensitivity try to participate, but then they get overwhelmed. They try to do things to keep it to a minimum, but they are in the game participating so sometimes they get overwhelmed. Their brain is trying to take the stuff in, but their low sensory thresholds are flooding them. Sometimes people with sensitivity can feel overwhelmed or bossy because they are trying to navigate and participate as much as they can.
Registration: Registration shares high thresholds with seekers, but they have a passive self-regulation strategy letting things happen to them then reacting accordingly.
Through observation and assessment, a child’s sensory needs can be uncovered. From this, the necessary interventions can be put in place to better support your child’s needs.
Written by Lucy Nolan, Allied Health Assistant at De Silva Kids Clinic.
