Sensory Processing

Have you ever wondered why your child
 jumps and stomps a lot ,
 is on the go most of the times,
 might be inattentive to your directions at times,
 gag at the smell or sight of some foods,
 may not sit in one place for long,
 does not play consistently,
 is socially not so active

Some children cannot cope with school routines and are not at all happy with the thought of school, cannot copy down the class work fully, might complain of watering of eyes and headaches?

Well apparently there might be no gross affectation but there is a high probability that your child might have inappropriate sensory processing.

What is sensory processing?

Sensory processing deals with the reception of information and stimuli from the surrounding environment, its registration and processing and most important with this background reacting to the various stimuli.

This information is received through our special senses like tactile (skin), visual (eyes), vestibular (ears), proprioceptive (joints and muscles), olfactory (nose), gustatory (tongue) and processed in the different centers in the brain.

Imagine what happens in a traffic jam and in a cross connection. This is exactly what happens when a child has difficulty in processing sensory information. So the output seems to be a fussy, over reactive, emotionally labile, clumsy child.
It might result in selective attentiveness, visual difficulties and the child may be wrongly labeled as a hyperactive, dyslexic, depressed, autistic and so on.

One has to discriminate between the sensory processing difficulties and a pronounced Sensory Processing Disorder.