By Stacey on August 5, 2008
The Sensory Profile allows therapists and parents to look at the child's sensory needs based on four quadrants. We will talk about those today.
Poor Registration
These children have trouble interpreting or registering the sensory information they are receiving from their environment. They are usually considered under-responsive to stimuli and respond little to sensory changes in the environment.
Behavioral Characteristics:
- May appear uninterested
- May have flat or dull affect (facial expression)
- Can be quiet/passive
- May seem to have low energy levels
- May act overly tired all the time
- May have an apathetic appearance
- May have a self-absorbed appearance
Intervention Ideas:
- Goal- Provide activities or changes in the environment that charge up the sensory system to meet the demands of a high threshold and allow child to function more effectively in the environment.
- Change the stimuli in environment in order to grab the child's attention-utilize objects with bright or contrasting colors; provide alerting activities such as spinning, fast swinging, running, jumping, bouncing, rolling, movement in quickly changing directions with changes to both acceleration and deceleration; engage in activities that use changes in temperatures or touch (cold, vibration); utilize music with fast or irregular rhythms; offer foods with alerting tastes such as sour, bitter, or spicy.
- Change the daily, predictable routines of your day from time to time- try new foods, new outings, new times for activities. This can be a really hard one for our kids, so be sure to offer these changes one at a time, allowing the child a better opportunity to adjust and enjoy!
Sensation Seeking
These children actively seek and crave sensory input from their environment. They engage in activities or actions that intensify the feelings of the input. They have a high-threshold for sensory input and are always seeking to feed the craving of more!
Behavioral Characteristics:
- Can be very active
- Seem to be continuously engaging in activities
- May appear fidgety
- Easily excitable
- May make noises while playing or working
- Seem to have the constant need to touch objects
- May constantly chew on things
- May wrap themselves around furniture or other people
- May lack consideration for safety while playing
- May be a risk-taker
Intervention Ideas:
- Goal- Provide activities or environmental changes that feed the high-threshold of the child, allowing the sensory input to have a greater and longer-lasting effect.
- Provide alerting activities- utilize the same types of activities as you would above, however these kids can tolerate (and crave!) more intensity with the activities.
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Posted in Family
By Stacey on July 23, 2008
Sensory Integration Dysfunction can sometimes feel like the latest buzzword. But for many children and their parents, it is very real. All day. Every day.
In the simplest of explanations, it is the inability of a person's body and brain to receive, organize, integrate, and interpret sensory information from the environment and themselves.
Today, I want to begin a two-part series by sharing about a tool developed to better help therapists identify and treat sensory dysfunction. The Sensory Profile was developed by Winnie Dunn, Ph.D., OTR, FAOTA. It also provides therapists a framework with which to explain to parents their child's sensory characteristics.
Our Sensory System:
- Our neurological system that sends messages to the brain about our environment.
- Balances our senses in order to function in the environment.
- Able to respond to some stimuli and ignore the other stimuli for us to adapt to our environment.
- Includes touch, taste/smell, visual, auditory, vestibular (movement and body position in space), and proprioception (position of our muscles and joints in space).
- When one or more parts are not intact, the system can either run on high, low, or mixed.
THE SENSORY PROFILE
OVERVIEW:
- A standardized method of measuring and reporting sensory processing abilities.
- Questionnaire is completed by primary caregiver.
- Indicates a person's response to basic sensory information (Sensory Processing), how one regulates neural messages through facilitation and inhibition of responses received from the environment (Modulation), and how one behaves in response to the sensory stimuli received (Behavioral and Emotional Responses).
SENSORY PROCESSING- Includes questions regarding:
- Visual Processing; measures responses to things seen such as bothered by bright light, misses details, doesn't look at objects.
- Auditory Processing; measures responses to things heard such as distracted by noise, tunes out.
- Vestibular Processing; measures the child's response to balance and movement such as becomes distressed when feet leave ground, car sickness, trouble with uneven surfaces.
- Touch Processing; measures child's response to touch on skin such as irritated by socks or shoes, doesn't seem to feel things as much.
- Oral Sensory Processing; measures touch and taste stimuli to mouth such as limits foods based on texture or temperature, stuffs mouth, poor articulation, aversion to touch around mouth.
- Multisensory Processing; measures a child's response to activities that have combined sensory experiences such as overwhelmed in an active environment, melts down easily, hyperactive response to stimuli.
MODULATION- Includes questions regarding:
- Sensory Processing Related to Endurance/Tone; measures child's ability to sustain performance such as poor endurance, tires easily.
- Modulation Related to Body Position and Movement; measures child's ability to move effectively such as takes risks with little regard for personal safety, refuses to move or climb due to inability to tolerate movement in space.
- Modulation of Movement Affecting Activity Level; measures child's level of activeness such as spends most of day in sedentary activity or unable to slow down in response to activity.
- Modulation of Sensory Input Affecting Emotional Responses; measures child's ability to use activity to generate emotional responses such as overly emotional, prefers rituals, rigid movement.
- Modulation of Auditory Input Affecting Activity Level and Emotional Responses; measures child's ability to integrate auditory stimuli and the resulting effect on emotions such as inattention with background noise, becomes anxious around loud noises.
- Modulation of Visual Input Affecting Activity Level and Emotional Responses; measures child's ability to use visual cues to relate to others such as stares intently at objects or people, overwhelmed by too much visual stimuli.
BEHAVIORAL and EMOTIONAL RESPONSES- Includes questions regarding:
- Emotional and Social Responses; measures child's psychosocial coping mechanisms such as handling fears that interfere with daily activities.
- Behavioral Outcomes of Sensory Processing; measures child's ability to meet performance demands such as difficulty tolerating changes in plans, difficulty handling transitions.
- Items Indicating Thresholds for Responses; measures child's level of modulation such as can't engage in play, jumps quickly between activities thus limiting play.
CATEGORIES:
- Sensory Seeking
- Emotionally Reactive
- Low Endurance/Tone
- Oral Sensory Sensitivity
- Inattention/Distractability
- Poor Registration
- Sensory Sensitivity
- Sedentary
- Fine Motor/Perceptual
THRESHOLDS:
- High-Requires a lot of stimuli in order to balance senses to function in environment.
- Low-Requires very little stimuli to function in environment.
- The High/Low thresholds and behavioral responses can be plugged into a chart made up of four quadrants.
Next time, I will share the behavioral characteristics of the four quadrants, along with intervention ideas.
You can also find me over at The Truest Thing.
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I am 34 and was diagnosed with what was then called Sensory Integration Disorder long before there was a lot known about it or a lot of options for intervention or therapy. Thank you for writing about this to educate the general public about this very real (no, you can't discipline or "will it" away) disorder.
What a wonderful post! My son has SID and yes, it can be very overwhelming for him.