People who have sensory integration dysfunction are either overly sensitive or not sensitive enough to something in the five basic senses. It is often misdiagnosed, according to The Out-of-Sync Child by Carol Stock Kranowitz, as ADHD or a learning disability. Although there’s a high rate of comorbidity for ADHD and sensory integration dysfunction, it is not absolute, and they are two separate diagnoses.
A person suffering from sensory integration dysfunction will find that basic stimuli that would not normally upset a neurotypical person has a profound reaction on him. It will trigger a flight-or-fight response, causing the person to either shut down or get unduly upset. As with all disorders, to be diagnosed, this has to cause difficulty in function. Most of us know what it feels like to have taken too much in and to be “overstimulated.” If you dislike crowds and go to the state fair, or watch your child at Disney World, you’ll see a small portion of what the individual with sensory integration dysfunction feels on a day-to-day basis.
Since the senses are the way in which we view the world, the consequences can be fairly extreme. Individuals with sensory integration dysfunction often suffer from other emotional or social problems, according to Bright Tots website. Because the individual suffering from sensory integration dysfunction may be so preoccupied with just trying to function in a hostile world, they may see motor delays or speech delays. These are compounded by the fact that many of the difficulties in sensory integration dysfunction may lead a person to shun some experiences that would naturally allow them to build these abilities. For instance, my friend has a child with sensory integration dysfunction. This child careens from extreme motion, seemingly in an attempt to cast off the senses that overpower her, to standing absolutely still to avoid feeling too much. This sort of reaction is fairly common in children with sensory integration dysfunction and can result over time in fewer experiences.
Treatment for sensory integration dysfunction takes quite a bit of time, but is quite important to attempt. Many of the children I know with sensory integration dysfunction are treated by occupational therapists, but many of the therapists also send the parent and child home with “homework” to build on what they learn in the therapist’s office. The treatment includes exposing the child gradually to sensory stimuli that they would not other wise seek out. Bright Tots and The Out-of-Sync Child both refer to this as a “sensory diet.” The idea here is that children need to feel and touch and learn to expose themselves to the stimuli that they find reprehensible in order to overcome their extreme reactions.
My own child has some degree of sensory sensitivity. For a child who may not have full blown sensory integration dysfunction and for the child with complete dysfunction, the premise is the same: teaching them to tone down their reactions to the overstimulation until they can learn to manage it. We created a sensory book for our daughter, consisting of a variety of tactile experiences in the form of sandpaper, feathers, cardboard, foil, etc. She can stroke and touch these objects and, in doing so, has overcome some of the more extreme reaction to these tactile sensations. Occupational therapists may take this one step farther, engaging in brushing the child’s arm with a variety of objects with different textures. This is useful in children who cannot bring themselves to touch the unpleasant stimuli.
Sensory stimuli pose little threat to the child, since the stimulus does not actually pose potential for harm. It is merely unpleasant. However, the child’s response may be to engage in some sort of self-injurious behavior, particularly in people with very extreme reactions to sensory stimulus. Light touch may be so awful that a harsh touch in the form of pounding on one’s self may be preferable to overcome the feeling of the light touch. Although this is an ongoing process, sensory therapy has great results in many children, with very little negative results.
Children with autism whom I have known have had good luck with changing diet. Some of the sensory problems can arguably be traced back to deficiencies or allergies to something in the diet. Gluten free diets have shown very good results among people with autism. This has very mixed response, but causes few long term problems. The only danger would be to cut out something that the child actually needs from his or her diet, which can be easily remedied.
