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How to Recognize Sensory Integration Difficulties in Your Child

© Barbara Fowler

A long time ago, when my son was around three years of age, I wondered why he fell off chairs sideways, fell down suddenly as if someone had kicked his legs out from under him and why he had to wear sunglasses all the time. He didn't seem to feel his feelings like hunger or having to go to the toilet. I also wondered why he absolutely refused to make mud pies, hated people with loud voices and could not stand to get dressed. If he sat anywhere near someone with perfume on, he became so agitated and tearful that I had to move him away from the smell. Food became a serious problem when he wouldn't eat food with certain smells or textures. When he was around five years of age, he would walk into walls, prompting a spat of eye doctor appointments that showed he lacked depth perception due to a wandering eye. I had assumed that this was at the root of most of his difficulties.

At the age of seven, it was obvious to me that he could not navigate around the school without getting lost and as I walked him into the school I noticed that he couldn't walk and talk with children milling around him and maintain his balance. Being in the playground at school seemed a horrifying experience for him and he would sit on a log with his hat pulled over his face, or curl up in the fetal position. After many months of researching Asperger Syndrome I came across several links and articles dealing with Sensory Integration Therapy and I now understand that my son has difficulty processing sensory information in the usual way.

Most people develop integration of their senses as they grow up but some people with autism or asperger syndrome have difficulties with one or more senses, causing behavior problems and, in some cases, actually feel pain when one sense is overloaded. Sensory integration difficulties are thought to be the cause of the stimming behavior often seen in autistic children. Without the sensory information around them being processed in an organized manner children can exhibit various symptoms.

The three areas that cause the most difficulty are:

Vestibular: Our sense of balance and motion comes from this area.

Proprioception: Our sense of where our bodies are comes from this area.

Tactile: Our sense of touch comes from this area.

When we experience the environment around us through all of our senses, that experience becomes organized and we understand what is happening to us. When one of our senses is not processing the incoming information correctly we have great difficulty understanding what is happening.

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