While Sensory Processing Disorder is not a formal diagnosis, identifying a child (or adult, for that matter) with a sensory “issue” is common among parents, teachers, and professionals. Responses to everyday sensory experiences such as light, sound, movement and touch can be over, or under-interpreted. The tag on a t-shirt, the ticking of a schoolroom clock, a bouncy ride on a school bus, the fluorescent lights at the supermarket, the flickers of restaurant televisions . . . these and other seemingly innocuous experiences can be enough to cause significant attentional and behavioral changes in a sensitive individual.
Identifying the triggers for an attentional or behavioral change can be confusing because the nature of the sensory system is that we perceive it ourselves! If you have always experienced your sensory world accurately, it can be not easy to conceive that another individual will perceive the same stimulation differently. Additionally, besides the 5 senses that we all know, we have what’s called the vestibular sense which helps us perceive movement of our head. We also have a sense of proprioception which uses our muscles and joints to tell us where our body is in space.
Accurately perceiving our bodies and how we are moving through space are extremely important perceptions that give the brain a sense of orientation, balance, and stability. Feeling oriented is a very high priority for the brain and errors in this sensory process undoubtedly influence attention and behavior.
In our office, we thoroughly assess these sensory systems. The brain produces predictable reflexive responses to our sensory world, which can be readily observed and measured. If something touches our skin, we should easily be able to localize where we were touched with precision and accuracy. If we look at a target and turn our head, our eyes should move exactly equally and opposite our head so that we can continue looking at our target of interest. If we close our eyes and touch our nose, we should be able to easily target our own body without error or hesitation. Errors in these and other tests can indicate that an individual has a sensory processing problem and therapeutic intervention can often fully correct these findings.
