Ayres Sensory Integration®

The auditory system is crucial for experiencing the world through sound. If you have concerns about your child's hearing, it's important to rule out hearing loss or damage first.

Signs of Auditory Processing Challenges in Young Children:

🔊 Difficulty distinguishing between similar-sounding words, which may impact language development.

🔊 Struggles to respond to their name or follow simple instructions, indicating challenges in processing and understanding auditory information.

🔊 Struggles to understand speech in noisy environments, leading to difficulties following instructions or engaging in conversations.

🔊 Exhibits delayed or limited response to sounds in their environment, such as not turning towards the source of a sound or reacting inconsistently to auditory stimuli.

2. Sensory Reactivity:

Over-reactivity (Auditory Defensiveness):

🔊 Dislikes loud noises and may cover their ears frequently to block out sounds.

🔊 Reacts strongly to background sounds that others might filter out, leading to discomfort or distress.

🔊 Becomes upset or cries in response to common household noises, indicating heightened sensitivity to auditory stimuli.

🔊 Fearful of public restrooms due to loud flushing toilets, hand dryers, or other loud noises, demonstrating avoidance behavior triggered by auditory stimuli.

Under-reactivity:

🔊 Speaks loudly.

🔊 Prefers loud music or TV.

🔊 Creates noise in quiet environments, like tapping objects or humming.

🔊 Puts ears close to sources of sound.

The olfactory system, often known as our sense of smell, is an extraordinary sensory pathway located within our nose. It connects to the olfactory cortex in the brain, influencing our behavior, emotions, memories, and thoughts. 

Signs of Sensory Integration Issues Related to Olfactory Processing:

1. Sensory Discrimination or Perception Issues:

🌿Difficulty identifying odors or their sources.

🌿Perceiving odors differently from others, often finding pleasant scents unpleasant.

2. Sensory Reactivity:

Over-Reactivity:

🌿Gagging in response to mild smells.

🌿Avoiding certain foods because of their scents.

🌿Avoiding public places with various odors.

🌿Preferring a very limited or bland diet.

Under-Reactivity (Olfactory Seeking):

🌿Frequently smelling people and objects.

🌿Enjoying strong scents.

🌿Craving specific smells.

The gustatory system, our sense of taste, often teams up with the olfactory system (smell), but the oral motor system is the one that combines all these senses together within our mouth. 

This intricate system not only lets us taste but also enables us to chew, swallow, and communicate. These combined sensory signals have a significant impact on our food preferences and how we respond to different flavors and textures.

The oral motor system influences how we move our mouths, control saliva, and produce speech sounds. This integration of sensory systems inside the mouth affects various aspects of oral sensory processing.

Sensory Processing Challenges Related to the Oral Motor System:

🍽️May lead to food aversions due to unbearable textures.

🍽️Refusal to eat foods with mixed textures.

🍽️Preference for soft foods.

🍽️Highly sensitive to certain or all flavors.

🍽️Preference for a very bland diet.

Signs of hyper- and hypo-reactivity:

🍽️Frequent gagging or choking while eating.

🍽️Difficulty using a straw.

🍽️Picky eating habits.

🍽️Resistance to trying new foods.

🍽️Avoidance of "mushy" or crunchy foods.

🍽️Challenges with chewing or swallowing.

🍽️Excessive drooling.

🍽️Dislike for brushing teeth.

🍽️Strong emotional reactions to eating or tooth brushing requests.

OR

🍽️Frequent mouthing of non-food items.

🍽️Chewing on clothing, pencils, furniture, toys, etc.

🍽️Biting oneself or others.

🍽️Making irritating mouth noises.

🍽️Teeth grinding or biting lips and cheeks.

Our tactile system, responsible for our sense of touch, plays a vital role in processing all tactile sensations, from the gentlest touch to sharp pain. It relies on receptors in our skin, sending signals to our brains, helping us understand what we're touching and how to respond.

When a child's tactile system functions well, they can filter out irrelevant touch input and respond appropriately to their surroundings. They should express curiosity in interacting with their environment without being preoccupied with or fearful of touch.

Signs of Sensory Processing difficulties:

1. Sensory Discrimination or Perception difficulties:

👉🏻 Clumsiness, particularity with fine motor actions. 

👉🏻Difficulty with gripping objects, either too tightly or too lightly.

👉🏻Unable to discern the specific area of their body being touched.

👉🏻Poor fine motor skills.

👉🏻Fear of the dark.

2. Sensory Reactivity difficulties:Over-Reactivity (Tactile Defensiveness):

👉🏻Fearful of large crowds.

👉🏻Strong dislike of activities involving hair brushing, washing, drying, and cutting.

👉🏻Extremely ticklish.

👉🏻Reacts intensely to light touches, sometimes as if they're painful.

👉🏻Avoids certain sensations, like touching finger paint or putting feet in the sand.

👉🏻Distressed by tags or seams in clothing.

👉🏻Picky eater.

👉🏻Discomfort with messy play and certain textures.Under-Reactivity (Tactile Input Seeking):

👉🏻Constantly touching everything

👉🏻High pain tolerance, may not notice when they get hurt.

👉🏻May unintentionally harm others due to a lack of awareness of their own strength.

👉🏻Unaware of facial dirt or a runny nose.

The visual system, a vital part of our central nervous system, enables us to see and interpret the world around us.It is important to distinguish between visual processing challenges and vision problems. 

Common signs of visual processing issues include:

1. Sensory Discrimination or Perception difficulties:

👁️Avoids or has difficulty with activities demanding visual acuity, like pegboard puzzles, building a tower with blocks, inserting objects into a small slot. 

👁️Difficulty distinguishing between similar-looking objects or shapes, impacting their ability to recognize familiar objects or faces.

👁️Struggles to focus on visual stimuli or track moving objects, which may affect their visual attention and exploration of their environment.

2. Sensory Reactivity difficulties:Hyper-reactivity (Visual Avoidance):

👁️Avoids or dislikes bright lights and sunlight👁️Covers eyes or squints

👁️Appears to be scared of moving objects👁️Avoids direct eye contact

👁️Avoids group movement activitiesHypo-reactivity (Visual Input Seeking):

👁️Fixates on bright or flickering lights.

👁️Stares at moving objects, like fans or pinwheels.

👁️Gazes closely at objects or looks at things out of the corner of their eye.

Imagine your body has a built-in GPS system—it's called proprioception! This sense keeps track of where our body is in space. There are special receptors in our joints, muscles, and skin that team up to create body awareness.

These receptors, also known as proprioceptors, are like tiny messengers inside our skin, muscles, and joints. They send important updates to the brain through the nervous system. So, even if you close your eyes, your body still knows exactly what it's up to.

It's a common misunderstanding that signs of proprioceptive challenges are seen as misbehavior. Children who seem overly rough or hyperactive might actually be having proprioceptive challenges. On the flip side, kids who appear lethargic or clumsy may also be facing difficulties in proprioceptive processing.

Signs you may notice in your child:

💡Appear clumsy and trip over everything and anything

💡Bumps their toes a lot

💡Does not like change and becomes unsettled when their routine or environments changes

💡Difficulty with stairs and climbing structures on the playground.

💡Struggling to position their body correctly when learning new activities

💡Plays to rough/’hard’ with other children, bumping into others, accidentally hurting them.

💡Engages in aggressive behaviour, such as hitting, kicking, biting, or pushing.

💡Strokes the cat/dog too ‘hard’

💡Breaks toys, crayons, glue without meaning to

💡Slams doors shut

💡Chewing on clothing and objects