![]() Sitting in our school district’s offices with the “special education committee” assigned to evaluate my daughter’s needs, I became furious as the psychologist - who had never seen my daughter - pronounced her symptoms as “clearly ADHD,” on the basis of an ADHD checklist she held in her hands. I remember another day, too, about two years later. The Overlap Between Sensory Integration Problems and ADHD Only when Elisabeth was evaluated, at age 5, as having sensory processing disorder (SPD) by an occupational therapist trained in sensory integration (SI), did I begin to understand her perplexing behaviors. I knew almost nothing about sensory processing disorder (SPD) and ADHD. But these I chalked up to developmental angst. Elisabeth was terrified of playground swings and of walking barefoot in grass. Later, when I asked her why she screamed, she said she didn’t know, she just couldn’t control the impulse. Suddenly, my daughter stopped in her tracks and screamed - a long, loud scream of agony and frustration - prompting everyone around us to turn and glare. The traffic was loud and smelled of exhaust, a kid on a bike was blowing a whistle, and the storefronts were bursting with bright vegetables and flowers. I was cautioning Elisabeth about something, dragging her behind me the way you sometimes do with an almost-4-year-old. We were rushing to an appointment, hustling along a crowded sidewalk on a humid summer day. I remember the day I knew our daughter had a problem that we would later learn to call sensory processing disorder. What Do Sensory Integration Problems Look Like? Jean Ayres, the groundbreaking occupational therapist who first described sensory integration dysfunction more than 40 years ago, likened it to having “a traffic jam in the brain.” The bad feelings stay with her long after the physical triggers are gone.Ĭhildren with SPD can be frustrating to parents and teachers, but their behavior is most frustrating to the children themselves. ![]() Lacking an inner ability to cope with these irritations, she may kick the sand in frustration and lash out at her playmates, ruining her playtime and her entire afternoon. A highly sensitive child with SPD cannot ignore anything - the sweat is distracting and irritating, and the wind makes her feel worse, not better. It’s not difficult to see how the symptoms - distractibility, the need for intense activity, problems with social interactions - could seem like ADHD.Ī child playing in a sandbox can ignore the sweat trickling down her face and neck because she loves the sandbox, and there’s a breeze to cool her off a little. Most children with SPD display elements of both extremes, suffering from sensory overload at some times, seeking stimulation at others. These are the kids who love to spin and swing upside down. These children crave extra stimulation to arouse themselves - similar to needing the jolt of a wake-up shower after a sleepless night. To get the idea, imagine this scenario: Three children are telling you conflicting stories about who had the toy, the phone is ringing, and you suddenly smell the cake burning in the oven - and did I mention the itchy rash on your legs?įor others, outside stimuli are dulled, as if a shade has been pulled over the environment, muting sights, sounds, and touch. On the street, she ignores the booming car radios and honking horns, and the itch of her wool sweater, but attends to the sound of the bus turning the corner, “telling” her to wait before crossing the street.įor some children with sensory processing disorder (SPD), information reaching the senses often feels like an assault of competing stimuli. She pays attention to the teacher and filters out the noise of children in the hallway. At school, she sits alert at her desk without thinking about her posture. A child with good sensory integration automatically filters the important from the unimportant stimuli as she makes her way through the world. ![]() ![]() Sensory integration is the process by which information from our senses (touch, sight, hearing, taste, smell, as well as balance) is interpreted by the brain so that we can respond appropriately to our environment. ![]()
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