A better understanding of having Sensory Integration dysfunction

These are notes that I took from the book "The Sensory-Sensitive Child". All the notes I have taken are relevant to how sensory integration dysfunction has affected me.

Vestibular-Proprioceptive Modulation difficulties

Child with sensory integration difficulties are more cautious about moving from a prone to upright position
Has to think about gravity all the time
Affect movement and balance, the challenge of sitting up, walking down the hall in a straight line
Takes concentration
Showering after sleeping- sensitive to temperature
Tactilely defensive- pressure of water hurts
Why I cannot shower in the morning
May hate feeling of soap on body, or texture of towel
Leaning over to dry legs might make you dizzy (pg 45)
Sensory Modulation difficulties
Auditory sensitive
Child cannot handle a movie theater (pg 47)
I couldn't go to the movie theatre, a concert, or bowling when I was little
Tactile Modulation difficulties
Sensitive to labels on clothes & seams of socks
Bed sheets
Refuse to wear jeans, will only wear pants with elastic waists
Wear the same clothes everyday even if they are old or dirty
Child will not wear a coat
As soon as child gets home, she will take off shoes and clothes
“Over-reactions” to certain materials or experiences
Eating problems with tactile modulation difficulties
Cannot eat certain foods
I could not eat fast food when I was little because the smell made me sick
I could not eat spaghetti unless the noodles were a little bit hard- the noodles were too worm-like
A child with sensory modulation difficulties in the tactile realm may:
Aggressively respond to touch or imagined touch
Not want to wear clothes
Show peculiar responses to food textures
Not want to be cuddled (pg 49)
Excessively ticklish
Resist wearing certain materials, long sleeves, pants
Strip clothes and shoes off whenever possible and change into something comfortable
Are sensitive to waistbands, belts, collars, and sleeves
Become controlling with others in an attempt to decrease overwhelming input
Auditory Modulation difficulties continued
The child may be sensitive to a person's voice ie a mother seems like she is yelling even though she is using her regular voice
Child may get irritable if the noise level in a room is high enough to grate on her but not so loud that she complains or covers her ears
A child with auditory modulation difficulties can be loud
Why? -->When you are in a noisy place or you are talking with someone with a loud voice, don't you generally talk louder?
The child may feel that everybody is yelling at her so she shouts back
Makes her own noise to block the noise around her
A child with sensory modulation difficulties in the auditory realm may:
Have difficulty filtering noise in a classroom or elsewhere
Overreact to loud sounds, frequently covering her ears with her hands
Complain that others are screaming at her
Hear noises that others do not hear (pg 50-51)

I could hear my mom in the other room talking about me to her relatives and she was always surprised at this- said I have good hearing

Visual modulation difficulties
Sensitive to light or bright colors
Sensitive to direct eye contact
Become overstimulated when someone holds their gaze for too long or when a person puts her face too close to them
Difficulty shifting gaze from one object to another
Difficulty copying from books
Tiring easily when attending visually complex tasks- when I saw Avatar in 3D, I had a really bad headache from the dimension and colors
Squinting and rubbing eyes
Vestibular-Proprioceptive Modulation difficulties
Misperceive where their bodies are in space- appear clumsy
Bumping into people, crashing into things
Generally unaware of how much force they use when touching other people or handling everyday objects (pg 52-53)
Break toys, poke holes in paper while writing, drawing, painting, put down things that with a crash
When I go to the beach and stand where the water meets the sand, it makes me dizzy when the waves go back and bring the sand with them
Poor balance
Difficulty going up and down stairs- feels like you are going to trip or miss a step
Slouching off to one side; trouble maintaining a seated position with good posture
Afraid of heights or fast-moving activities
Gravitational insecurity: abnormal distress or fear of falling in response to movement or a change in position of one's head
Fear of escalators and open staircases
Avoidance of sports or difficulty learning them
Bumping into things (pg 54)
A child with vestibular-proprioceptive discrimination difficulties may have problems with:
Maintaining balance when moving
Knowing the position of her body in space and its relationship to its surroundings
Maintaining an upright posture or sitting in a chair for a long period of time
Differentiating right from left after age 7 (I had trouble with this)
Enjoying playground equipment or amusement park rides-the kids prefer to have their feet firmly planted on the ground (I could only ride the kiddie rides at the fair until I was 12) (pg 61)
Dyspraxia: difficulty in planning and carrying out unfamiliar sequences of movement in a skillful manner
A child with dyspraxia may have difficulty in both the ideational and motor realms with:
Deciding what to do and how to do it
Getting started on projects
Translating ideas and images into action
Organizing a series of actions to produce an intentional movement
Figuring out how to play a new game or incorporate new actions or movements into an old pattern of activity (pg 63)
Dysfunctional sensory integration is not a psychiatric diagnosis
Sensory processing problems occur simultaneously with psychiatric disorders like Asperger's Syndrome or ADHD (pg 80)
The term sensory integration dysfunction is much too broad and encompasses too many subcategories to be helpful to parents looking for specific advice on how to help their child (pg 82)
Sensory integration dysfunction can be thought of as a glitch in the electrical circuity of the brain (pg 100)
Information processing
The child may not look, listen, process, or remember information accurately (pg 105)
It's impossible for someone to behave normally if her body and brain are exchanging misinformation (pg 106)
Succeeding the world
Ayres said “Working hard may help, but it is not the way to overcome the problem, and brightness is also not enough. A child may work very hard and with a lot of intelligence, but because she is working and thinking with a poorly organized nervous system, she will still have troubles” (pg 117)
I feel that I work a lot harder than others, especially when I was in college, but I still could not get the better score on an essay or test
To contact an occupational therapist, contact American Occupational Therapy Association or Sensory Integration International
How to help your child:
Clothing- respect your child's clothing preferences
Sweatpants are comfortable
Let child wear short sleeves year-round
Hideaways- Set up a small space or cardboard box large enough for her to fit inside
Fill it with pillows and favorite books
Allow her to go into this sensory shelter when she needs to recover from too much sensory assault
Helpful during transition from school to home (pg 130-131)
Relationship between sensory processing difficulties and pervasive developmental disorders such as autism and Asperger's Syndrome
Dysfunctional sensory processing is one of the defining characteristics of these disorders (pg 217)
Can a child outgrow her sensory processing problems?
Children whose difficulties with sensory processing go unrecognized are less likely to “outgrow” them
Their experiences are frequently characterized by failure and misunderstanding and can lead to poor self esteem
If these children do not learn strategies for coping with their difficulties, their problems are likely to become more complicated over time; these complications further reduce the likelihood that the situation will improve naturally (pg 218)
Understanding the child's strengths and weaknesses and knowing how to deal with them is more important than coming up with the right “diagnosis” (pg 219)
“Brushing"
Therapeutic technique used by occupational therapists to reduce the sensitivity to clothes by using a surgical brush
Wilbarger protocol is based on the assumption that certain types of sensory experiences- such as deep pressure, proprioception (joint compression), and vestibular input- will reduce sensory defensiveness (pg 222)

See website: sensorysensitivechild.com