At all times of the day, you receive information from your environment to your entire sensory system, including your eyes, ears, and skin. For some children, the sensory input they receive can be too overwhelming, or it may not register at all, which makes it difficult for them to attend and follow directions at home and school. An occupational therapist (OT) is a practitioner who specializes in teaching children to be as independent as possible while conducting activities of daily living (ADLs), such as eating, riding in a car, sitting in a classroom, and writing. For children who have difficulty processing sensory information, these daily tasks can be extremely challenging.
What Is Sensory Processing?
One area of specialty for the OT is sensory processing, which is the ability to receive information, process, interpret, and use that information appropriately. However, when there is a breakdown in one of the sensory areas, it can be challenging to behave or respond in socially appropriate or acceptable ways, especially at school. OTs conduct thorough sensory processing evaluations, create treatment plans, and provide recommendations to family members and teachers to help them address the child’s sensory needs at home and school.
Via standardized assessments, observations, and clinical judgment, the OT assesses the following eight sensory areas.
- Sound – auditory processing.
- Sight – visual processing.
- The perception and awareness of the body in space – proprioceptive processing.
- Balance – vestibular processing.
- Touch – tactile processing.
- Smell – olfactory processing.
- Taste – gustatory processing.
- Feelings within the body – interoceptive processing.
What Is a Sensory Processing Disorder?
A sensory processing disorder (SPD) is a breakdown in the interpretation of sensory stimuli. Some children are overly sensitive and respond in unexpected ways to sensory information. In contrast, other children have the opposite response and under-respond. Children who are under-sensitive may not have any awareness of an external stimulus or how they feel about it. For example, a child may have difficulty with auditory stimuli causing them to overreact to a sound with excessive crying or screaming, whereas other sounds may not appear to evoke a response at all.
For children with vestibular concerns, they may become dizzy easily or experience motion sickness quickly. Whereas other children may be unfazed by motion despite prolonged swinging or spinning. Children may dislike sitting or lying in certain positions and may be overly cautious.
Children with SPD will either acutely avoid or excessively seek out sensory information. Some common symptoms of children with SPD include the following:
- Complaining that the lighting is too bright.
- Complaining that sounds are too loud or not loud enough.
- Gagging on certain food textures.
- Avoiding specific food temperatures.
- Avoiding playground equipment.
- Showing overt clumsiness.
- Falling out of their seat.
- Becoming frightened by sudden movements.
- Having difficulty wearing clothing because of the way it feels.
- Having difficulty writing and concentrating.
There are many other manifestations of an SPD. The world is a sensory playground, and brains are receiving stimuli through all the sensory avenues. For many children, it is possible to synthesize stimuli without becoming overwhelmed or oblivious to them. However, for others, the sensory world is difficult to navigate, and it requires the expertise of an occupational therapist to help assess and treat these essential everyday abilities.
Learn how sensory processing disorders are assessed at WPS, publisher of the Sensory Processing Measure, Second Edition.
