Each week we will be sharing a tip from our school psychologist, Mrs. Rollins.

This week we are talking about – What is Sensory Integration?

Sensory integration is how we experience, interpret and react to or ignore signals from our senses. Input comes from our 5 main senses: sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. But 3 others are proprioception (body awareness and position), vestibular (balance, movement and coordination) and interoception (internal systems like hunger, toileting needs, fatigue or emotions).

Most of us do little things to fulfill sensory needs to keep us at an even keel of attention and awareness during tasks. Behaviors could be like clicking a pen, chewing gum or shaking a leg during a long meeting. After work we might go for a run, clean something in our home or work on a tinkering project to get rid of excess energy or stress. These behaviors help us to be functional in everyday activities.

When children engage in a behavior to fulfill a sensory need that doesn’t help them be functional in their environment, then a specialist looks at how to fulfill sensory needs in a functional way. Sensory problems tend to be either hypersensitive where they avoid sensory input the feels overwhelming or hyposensitive where they seek sensory input to calm down. You can also have a mix of hypo and hypersensitive sensory needs.

This condition is often called Sensory Processing Disorder, but it isn’t a recognized psychiatric disorder. Sensory issues are often associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD and OCD. Support or therapy is given by an Occupational Therapist (OT). An OT in a school supports function at school, but a private practice OT addresses sensory needs in all environments to help the improve sensory regulation overall.

If you are curious about whether your child or student might have sensory integration issues complete this free checklist. You can consult your school’s OT or check your insurance for OT services.

Sensory Integration Education and Child Mind Institute both have more information on this topic. A sensory checklist can be found here.

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