Could My Child Have Sensory Processing Problems?

Does your child have a fit every time you are in a restaurant? Does your child have a meltdown when it’s time to visit friends or family? Do you leave the grocery store with a flailing, screaming child most weekends? Sensory integration challenges could be playing a role. 

All information from our environments is first filtered through our senses (touch, sound, sight, movement, body awareness, taste, and smell). Sensory processing is how we transform sensory input from within our own bodies and the environment into messages we can act on. It’s tempting to think of senses as separate sources of information, but they work together to give us an accurate picture of our environment and our place in it.

The senses are vital to attachment, learning, and healthy development. A child who receives the care she needs in the first months and years of life learns to trust. Conversely, a child who is neglected and abused during early life learns not to trust. The child who is not well-cared for does not experience soothing feedings, rocking, cradling, and nurture when she is upset or sick. Without the sound and touch of human interaction, this child’s sensory systems do not develop optimally.

Upon entry into an adoptive home, this can look like: meltdowns in crowded places due to inability to filter all of the auditory input (noise), aversion to touch (i.e., wiping off your kisses, refusal to give hugs), covering her eyes in the light, covering her ears when there is a loud noise, refusal to wear certain types of clothing (commonly socks, shirts with tags and jeans) and refusal to eat particular foods because of the texture. How do we support our child’s sensory integration?

• Locate an experienced occupational therapist with a sensory integration certification for an evaluation of your child. Seek parenting support/education through a therapist trained in sensory integration.

• Read The Out-of-Sync Child by Carol Kranowitz

• Observe your child and keep a journal of meltdowns for one week, be sure to include information about what happened before and after the meltdown. After a week, review the journal and begin to make connections between particular sensory input and your child’s meltdowns.

• Provide your child with repetitive, rhythmic, patterned activities in order to support brain and sensory development. For example, swimming, rocking, swinging, jumping on the trampoline, etc. Be sure to provide a pattern to these activities – like allowing your child to jump on the trampoline for 10 minutes at night and for 10 minutes in the morning. Very important: be sure to limit these activities to 10-15 minutes at a time (or less than this if your child shows signs of sensory overwhelm.)

• Provide your child with proprioceptive (i.e, deep muscle) input when you see signs of overwhelm. This can be offering the child a piece of gum, pushing with both hands against a wall for one minute or physically moving heavy objects like books for one minute. This type of input is almost always calming for children struggling with sensory processing challenges.

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Derived or reproduced from Trust-Based Relational Intervention® resources (Purvis & Cross, 1999-2012).