Sensory Integration? What Does Integration Mean?

 

There are lot's of great resources on this subject but my favorite is Raising a Sensory Smart Child.

 

I am going to share some information about sensory integration from this book.

What is Sensory Integration?

The authors state

"Sensory integration refers to how people use the information provided by all the sensations coming from within the body and from the external environment."

The authors go on to explain that many of us think of each sense separately. Actually, when working appropriately, the senses integrate together to give a complete understanding of who a person is, where he is and what is happening around him. When's the senses integrate efficiently, it isn't even noticed because it is working appropriately. The problem arises when sensory integration is inefficient. The individual has a hard time knowing what is going on around him. There is no guarantee that the sensory information he is getting is even accurate.

There are two areas that provide information regarding an individual's sensory integration.

• Inconsistent response to sensory information (at times a person may be over sensitive or hypersensitive to certain senses while being under sensitive or hypo sensitive to other senses or sensory experiences.
• Modulation is how the nervous registers modulates all the incoming sensory information. When this information is well modulated, a child interacts with others and displays age appropriate behavior. Occasionally, this child will have sensory input such as hunger or pain but because of a well modulated sensory system, the child can manage this experiences quite well. This is not the case for the child who has modulation difficulties. The bottom line is, this can case difficulty in most areas of life.

This information is very basic. An occupational therapist can diagnose a sensory processing problem. If anything in this blog post raises any red flags, an OT evaluation would be a great first step. Sensory integration is quite complicated so please seek professional help if you are concerned. I would love to hear from you during this series on occupational therapy.

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