We experience the world through eight main senses:
- Sight (Visual): How we see colors, shapes, and movement.
- Hearing (Auditory): How we hear sounds, like music or voices.
- Smell (Olfactory): How we detect and recognize different scents.
- Taste (Gustatory): How we taste sweet, sour, salty, and bitter flavors.
- Touch (Tactile): How we feel textures, temperature, and pressure.
- Balance & Movement (Vestibular): How we keep our balance and understand movement.
- Body Awareness (Proprioceptive): Knowing where our body parts are and how they’re moving.
- Internal Senses (Interoceptive): How we feel hunger, thirst, pain, and emotions inside our bodies.
Neurodivergent kids can process these senses differently. Some might be over-responsive (hypersensitive), meaning they’re easily overwhelmed by sensory input. A strong smell, a loud noise, or a light touch might be too much. Others might be under-responsive (hyposensitive), needing more sensory input to register it. They might seem to crave intense sensations.
Sensory overload happens when the brain gets bombarded with too much sensory information. It’s like a traffic jam in the brain, making it hard to process anything. This can be common because the neurodivergent brain sometimes struggles to filter out unnecessary sensory details.
Sensory experiences greatly impact daily life. Here are 10 ways sensory sensitivities can manifest:
- Environmental Sensitivity: Difficulty filtering noise, light, smells, leading to overwhelm and trouble focusing or task-switching
- Time Management: Sensory overload distorts time perception, making it hard to stay on schedule. Seeking sensory stimulation can also lead to losing track of time
- Motor Planning: Difficulty planning movements due to challenges with balance and body awareness
- Sensory Seeking: Stimming behaviors (fidgeting, tapping) to regulate sensory input. Difficulty when expected to sit still
- Organization & Planning: Sensory overload impairs decision-making and the ability to organize thoughts and tasks
- Communication: Difficulty filtering background noise and visual stimuli during conversations, leading to missed social cues and misunderstandings
- Focus & Attention: Sensory overload makes it even harder to maintain concentration
- Transitions & Changes: New sensory input during transitions and changes can be overwhelming
- Emotional Regulation: Sensory overload intensifies emotional reactions and can make self-soothing techniques difficult
- Sleep & Relaxation: Environmental sensitivities and accumulated sensory overload can make it hard to wind down and sleep
Managing sensory overload involves identifying triggers, planning ahead, taking breaks, using sensory tools (fidgets, noise-canceling headphones), practicing relaxation techniques, setting boundaries, creating a sensory-friendly environment, developing a sensory safety plan, coaching, sensory play, and potentially working with a sensory-based occupational therapist.
Dr. Neff from Neurodivergent Insights put together a useful list of 55+ Sensory Kit Ideas to help alleviate sensory processing stressors for our neurodivergent kids.