Does your child seem to overreact to loud noises or get anxious in crowded places? Do they tend to be sensitive to their environment and struggle to manage their feelings and reactions to things they don’t like? These are signs of sensory processing challenges, which can impact your child’s daily life. 

Today, we’re going to cover what sensory processing is, how challenges with this skill can impact your child, and what our occupational therapists in Winder, GA, can do to help. 

What Is Sensory Processing?

Sensory processing is how we make sense of the information our bodies receive from our senses. This is how you can tell you’re getting hungry, how you can ride a bike without falling over, and even how you can focus in a noisy environment.

Aside from the common senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing), there are three more important senses that help us handle daily life:

  • Vestibular sense – this is your sense of balance and orientation in space. It’s how you can do things like play sports and bend down to pick something up without falling over.
  • Proprioception – this is your sense of how your muscles and joints are moving, or what positions they are in. It’s how you can do things like walk or feel if you are going up or down a hill without having to look.
  • Interoception – this is your sense of what’s going on inside your body. It’s how you can tell if you’re getting hungry, nervous, or if you need to go to the bathroom.

What Are Sensory Processing Challenges?

Sensory processing challenges happen when a child is either too sensitive to what’s going on around them (sensory avoidant), or when they are not sensitive enough (sensory seeking).

Signs of Sensory Avoidance

Children who are too sensitive tend to be sensory avoidant, meaning they dislike places, activities, and things that engage multiple senses at once. Common signs of sensory avoidance include: 

  • Being unusually sensitive to bright lights, loud sounds, or strong tastes.
  • Getting overwhelmed in busy, crowded, or noisy environments.
  • Being afraid of activities like swinging, jumping, or climbing.
  • Gets distressed or even melts down with too much stimulation.

Signs of Sensory Seeking

Children who are not sensitive enough tend to be sensory seeking, meaning they actively try to feel more and more sensations. Common signs of sensory seeking include: 

  • Enjoying extreme games like spinning until they fall, running and crashing into things, or jumping excessively.
  • Not noticing when they get hurt, when they’re cold, or when they’re hungry. 
  • Frequently touching objects or people without regard for boundaries like personal space.
  • Having trouble focusing in school or sitting still. 

How Occupational Therapists Help Children Build Sensory Processing Skills

Occupational therapists help children build the skills they need to handle daily activities, which includes processing information from the senses. We work with children on play-based activities to help them build up sensory processing skills. Here are some of the ways that we can help:

  • Customized sensory diets – We work on different sensory activities (like swinging, brushing, or tactile play) to help children manage their responses to their environment. This can help improve their focus, behavior, and emotional control.
  • Improving body awareness – We do fun activities and exercises, like balance boards and obstacle courses, to improve a child’s ability to understand where their body is and how it’s moving. 
  • Desensitization techniques – We gradually introduce children to sensations they find overwhelming. By practicing a little at a time, we can help them “build up a tolerance” for different sensations. 
  • Developing coping strategies – We also teach children self-regulation techniques to help them manage overstimulation or sensory-seeking behaviors, such as deep breathing or other calming routines.

Tips to Help Your Child with Sensory Processing Challenges at Home

The best thing to do is work with a pediatric occupational therapist. But there are things you can do at home to support your child’s progress during therapy, such as: 

  • Give them a safe, quiet, comfortable space where they can go if they get overwhelmed. 
  • Offer calming sensory tools like fidget toys, weighted blankets, or chewable jewelry to help them self-soothe when they feel overstimulated. 
  • Encourage them to take regular “movement breaks” to get active and use up some of their excess energy. 
  • Be patient! Progress takes time, but the benefits your child can achieve from occupational therapy are well worth it.

Reach Out to Let’s Communicate

If your child seems to get easily overwhelmed by their environment, or if they’re constantly in motion without caring for their physical safety, it could be a sign of sensory processing challenges. Let’s Communicate can help! Reach out to us at (678) 963-0694 to schedule an evaluation with our team today.