It’s Monday morning, you’re trying to get kids ready for school. “Mom, you’re pulling my hair!” You feel like you’ve barely touched your daughter’s head. “My socks feel weird and one shoe is tighter than the other.” You feel like you are going to lose it and can’t understand why simple things seem so difficult. Did you slip into some twilight zone of picky kids? Or is there more going on than meets the eye?
Sensory Processing Disorder is a commonly overlooked problem or confused with autism in more severe cases. The following post is meant to explain SPD and shed some light on behaviors your children may possibly demonstrate. Also, give some hope beyond the diagnosis and slight improvement offered by mainstream healthcare.
The conclusion of this post will tell you more than you will typically get from your healthcare provider in regards to solutions and treatments for this along with the actual cause.
SPD is defined as a neurological disorder causing difficulties with processing information from the five senses (vision, auditory, touch, olfaction, and taste) the sense of movement (vestibular system), and/or the positional sense (proprioception).
SPD is defined in three sub-categories: Sensory Modulation Disorder, Sensory-Based Motor Disorder and Sensory Discrimination Disorder.
SENSORY MODULATION DISORDER: A problem turning sensory messages into controlled behaviors that match the nature and intensity of the sensory information. There are three varieties under this category.
1. Sensory Over Responsivity: Over responsive to stimuli. Complain of things too loud, too bright, too hard, too soft.
Example: “My son can’t stand tags in his shirts, has a meltdown every morning that his shoes feel weird on his feet. He gets overwhelmed in crowds or with too much noise and just falls apart.”
2. Sensory Under Responsivity: Under responsive to stimuli. Doesn’t cry when hurt. Don’t respond to loud noise, flash of light, too much pressure.
Example: “I heard a scream I’d never forget. I ran downstairs to find my daughter had tried to grab the cookie sheet out of the oven bare handed and her hands were already bubbled and blistered. She didn’t let go of the sheet right away.”
3. Sensory Seeking: Has to touch everything, bumps into things, rough, wants to crash into things, craves stimuli.
Example: “Your son has been disruptive in class. He touches everything he is not supposed to, he crashes into other children and things. He is just overall quite rough.”
‘CONTEXT’ also plays a large role in this category. Example: “My son falls apart halfway through church. My husband and I have to take turns going to church while the other stays home with him. He says that the music is too sad.” While this may seem like an overreaction, there are layers of things happening. The son was overwhelmed by the many people, the loud organ and when the ‘heavy’ context of the songs began… overload. He could not process the context of the feeling once his auditory over-responsivity kicked in. We all have our own contexts. When I am in a business meeting, we take turns speaking. When with family, we all talk at once. Different contexts.
SENSORY-BASED MOTOR DISORDER: A problem stabilizing, moving or planning a series of movements in response to sensory demands. There are two varieties under this category.
1. Dyspraxia: Has a hard time translating sensory info into physical movement, slow to sit, crawl or stand. Slow learning new motor skills, awkward movement, hard time moving multi-directionally (like writing), hard time getting dressed or riding a bike.
2. Postural Disorder: Low muscle tone, unstable on feet, slumps in chair, unable to do things where muscles pull against one another like chin-ups, no auto movement like shifting their position to catch a ball, hard time crossing the midline for tasks.
SENSORY DISCRIMINATION DISORDER: A problem with sensing similarities and difference between sensations involving vision, hearing, touch, taste/smell and position/movement.
Has a hard time tying a knot or zipping a zipper (tactile). Hard time seating themselves in a chair or judging the force of a task like force of a pencil on paper (touch or proprioception). Has a hard time hearing possibly the difference between g and k or bag and back (auditory). Has a hard time seeing the written difference in p and q, slow or unable to visually find a specific object (visual). Hard time distinguishing between certain tastes or smells. Hard time distinguishing what is touching their body or where (touch).
Example: “My niece had a look of terror when I turned around with a knife and she asked if it had cut her. She didn’t even know and I was at least four feet away.” She couldn’t judge what was a reasonable distance from the knife.
SPD and ADHD
Some children also get misdiagnosed with ADHD or vice versa. How can you know the difference? In my case studies, I have found the most obvious difference in the two are that an SPD child will calm their behavior when they get the right stimuli to the brain, whereas ADHD will not. The Sensory Seeking variety is especially obvious. When they get rocked, spun, pressure or other things that give their brain the vestibular or proprioceptive stimuli they are craving, they can calm. An ADHD child will continue behavior. (Which I believe has much more of a combination of nutritional and environmental causes).
Where my studies have led me and where I differ from mainstream healthcare is the CAUSE and proper treatment. I agree that you can look at and define any particular category and variety of disorder. You can assign a therapy to improve that particular area of disorder through an OT, PT, ST and so on… but WHY is the disorder happening in the first place? Let’s look at that in our efforts for a treatment.
The parts of our brain that develop these sensory capabilities are primarily the pons (part of the hindbrain) and midbrain. These are developed largely during the first year of life and primarily through movement. Certain positions, creeping and crawling all dictate whether these develop fully or not. The good news is, we can go back and develop them at any age.
This will be an entirely separate post, but know that there is hope beyond the very generalized, sub-par treatments being offered in mainstream healthcare.
My program is largely based on these studies.
