Ep 4-Making sense of sensory processing - Understanding your child's unique needs
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Welcome to the Go Beyond Therapy podcast, where we dive into the heart of supporting children with diverse needs. I'm Samantha Taylor, a pediatric occupational therapist passionate about helping children and families thrive. This podcast is all about creating a welcoming space for our entire disability [00:01:00] community, from families, therapists, disability support workers, and anyone dedicated to supporting children on their unique journey.
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Today we are diving into a big topic, sensory processing. If you've ever wondered why your child reacts so strongly to different sounds, or textures, or movements, or, on the other hand, seeking out big movements like deep pressure and chewing on things, you're definitely not alone. Understanding sensory processing can be an absolute game changer in helping your child feel [00:02:00] safe, comfortable, and confident in their little world.
Sensory processing is how the brain interprets and responds to sensory input. So if you think of your child or anyone, really, sensory processing is a bit like a computer or a laptop. So you've got input, coming into the computer, the computer being the brain, then accepts this information, processes it, and then you'll get a response or an outcome from the input that you've put in. So for example, you might have a child at school in a very noisy classroom and you get the noise as the input, the child's brain going, all this is too much, it's overwhelming, and the output is you then might have a child who withdraws or absconds, or hopefully notifies the teacher that the classroom is too loud and that the teacher can then do something about it.
Everyone processes their sensory input differently and different types of sensory input differently as [00:03:00] well. For some kids and some adults, they might over respond to different sensory inputs. So this might be avoiding the sensation or avoiding the input. Others might under respond. This is where they seek the input. This is where children might crash too much or jump around, lots of different examples I can give you, but that's basically how it looks. We have avoidant behaviours or we have seeking behaviours in different sensory inputs.
So one thing I want to make really clear is that sensory processing might look like behavior. But it's not behavior. It is how the body is responding to the particular input it's receiving. It's just how the brain's wired. So it's very common in kids with autism, ADHD and other neurodivergencies, but it can also occur with children or adults who haven't got a diagnosis at all. We all have our own little characteristics when processing [00:04:00] information and just because a child might not have a diagnosis doesn't mean they're not responding to their environment in a very particular way.
Now let's dive into the different sensory systems. At this stage, we have eight, eight different sensory systems, and they present differently between everyone. Sometimes we have a sensory seeker., So that's when someone seeks that input, or we have a sensory avoider where they avoid the input completely.
So first one we're going to look at is our tactile system, so touch. The tactile system processes information from our skin about texture, pressure, temperature, and pain. It helps us understand the physical role and plays a big role in comfort and safety. seeker might constantly touch textures, a seeker might constantly touch objects and people, they might enjoy messy play like love sand and slime, loves deep [00:05:00] pressure, may not notice pain, temperature and small injuries.
So, for some of the kids I work with who are tactile seekers they don't notice pain. So they might trip and fall and then get up completely and move on. They may not notice the change in temperatures. I have one child who on a 40 degree day will wear a ski coat. that shows us that his sensory system in terms of tactile system isn't responding to his environment in the most appropriate way. An avoider might dislike certain clothing textures, avoids messy paint, has a strong reaction to unexpected touch, and they may struggle with grooming with things like haircut, nail cuttings, teeth brushing, those sorts of things.
Next we're going to look at our auditory systems, so being our hearing. The auditory system helps us process sound, so how loud or soft high or low it may be. It also helps us focus on important sounds and [00:06:00] being able to filter out background noise, which I find is really important for our little ones with ADHD. They have a lot of trouble distinguishing between what's background noise and what is noise that they should be focusing on. A seeker might love loud noises. So this is music, banging, crashing, shouting. They might make repetitive sounds, which we call stimming. So they might hum, click, tap. They can get easily distracted by background noise and they love noisy places.
An avoider might get distressed by loud sounds like vacuum cleaners or hair dryers, struggles to have multiple conversations with background noise. They may speak in a quiet or more monotone voice or avoid overwhelming themselves. And they might become anxious in noisy environments, which makes it really hard for them to access things like shopping centers or supermarkets and do things that they may want to do.
Next we have [00:07:00] taste. our taste system processes flavours in food, basically. We can touch on different textures in food but that's more of a tactile processing system than a taste specific. So when I'm talking about taste, I'm talking specifically about our taste buds And they help us detect sweet, salty, sour, and bitter tastes. A seeker, you might have someone who really seeks strong flavors and food and textures, or you might have an avoider that prefers bland foods. A lot of the kids I work with love bland foods. It's just part of their brain. So they prefer things like biscuits, basically anything either processed, or a carbohydrate is usually, the type of diet they eat. It's either nuggets and chips and things like bickies, toast, porridge, but then again, it depends on the texture as well.
We'll get into our more lesser [00:08:00] known sensory systems now. The next one is vestibular input, which is sort of our balance and movement. The vestibular system is located within the inner ear and helps with balance coordination and spatial awareness. It helps us when we're moving to have an understanding of which direction and how fast we're moving.
The best example I can give you about vestibular input is if you think of a child on a swing and that rhythmic motion going backwards and forwards, that child is also getting proprioceptive input, but the swinging motion is what is the vestibular input, which can help regulate children. A seeker might love spinning, swinging and those sorts of things, they might be constantly on the move, but then an avoider avoids things like that. So avoids the swings and the slides on the playground. They might avoid being lifted off the ground. They might get dizzy really easily and they might have difficulty [00:09:00] with balance based activities like riding a bike and those sorts of things.
We then have our visual system, so sight. The visual system helps us interpret what we see, so light, color, shape, movement, and distance. It has a role in reading and spatial awareness and definitely focus. So a seeker might be drawn to bright colors, flashing lights, fast moving objects. They might stare at spinning objects like fans or wheels.
They might like looking at patterns and moving lights, or enjoy a fast paced visual activity like video games or TV. An avoider might get overwhelmed with bright lights, they might avoid eye contact, they might prefer dim lighting, or they might be sensitive to clutter and too many objects or get overwhelmed when trying to find something in their bedroom with mess.
Proprioception is body awareness and the pressure system. So proprioception helps us understand where our body is [00:10:00] in space. It tells us how much we're holding, pushing and lifting objects, which I know is a very broad definition for what proprioception is, but the best way I can explain it is giving you an example of what it looks like.
A seeker might love deep pressure. So this is tight hugs, being squished under a pillow, seeks heavy works, that pushing, pulling, crashing into things. They love to play roughly. So wrestling and jumping and those sorts of things. If you've got a child who loves proprioception, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. If you can't think of those things and they're not coming to mind, don't stress. You probably haven't got a seeker. You might have someone who's fairly neutral to proprioception input, or you might have someone who's an avoid us where they avoid physical play and they struggle to juggle force. So being able to carry multiple things at once, they might dislike tight clothing or heavy blankets, and they [00:11:00] might be clumsy and not quite know where their body is in space.
We then have our olfactory system, which is our smell. So our smelling system processes different scents and smells. It has a role in memory, taste and detecting danger. So when we make memories, we can sometimes associate a scent with that memory. So for example, you might yourself remember the smell of a roast turkey at Christmas time. And whenever you have that similar smell, you're taken right back to that moment. A seeker in this area smells everything, and I mean everything. If you have a seeker, like a real seeker for smell, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. They enjoy strong smells like candles and perfumes. They're drawn to certain smells and they don't notice when smells might be bad. So they might have difficulty managing their hygiene and their odor [00:12:00] and understanding deodorant use and those sorts of things. where an avoider is overwhelmed by strong smells. They might have difficulty being around an adult that has a really strong perfume. They might have difficulty with cleaning products, those sorts of things. They may refuse to eat certain foods because of the smell and they might cover up their nose in public places. So another family of mine that I've worked with had a lot of trouble managing their smell when going into public restrooms and we had to come up with some strategies around that.
And lucky number eight is our Interoception. So this is our internal body awareness. So things like hunger, thirst, regulation of temperature, pain, emotions, this particular sense is key for regulation. They may not quite notice hunger or thirst. They may not seem to recognize when they need to go to the bathroom. They might not understand physical sensations, they might have [00:13:00] difficulty noticing when they're hot or cold, they might have either side of that scale. They might have hyper awareness to thirst and hunger and pain, they might really struggle to regulate emotions. They might really be sensitive to temperature changes. It's really a huge scale in terms of the difficulties a child might have.
So I hope today's episode, it's given you the foundations to what sensory processing looks like and sensory processing within children. Head over to our socials. As you might find, there's some more useful resources if you're looking at deep diving into this topic a bit further.
Well, that's it for today. Thank you for spending some time with me. I know life can be full on, and I appreciate you being here. If today's episode has resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it with someone who might need to hear it too. And if you wanna keep the conversation going, you can find me over at our socials or on our website.
Remember, you are doing an incredible job, and you're not alone in this [00:14:00] journey. Until next time, take care and be kind to yourself.
