Help Sensory processing & ND
What is sensory processing?
The way we get information from our different senses, and what our brains do with it, is called sensory processing. We are all individuals and our brains process information slightly differently. This means we have different sensory likes and dislikes. Think about what food and drink you like and don’t like. Some people love coffee, some people don’t; some people love loud rock music, some people don’t.
The sensory system within our bodies processes incoming information all day long and works hard to keep our system balanced. This is called sensory self-regulation. Regulating our sensory system allows us to feel comfortable and ready to take part in activities, such as playing, learning, exercise and sleeping.
Our Amazing Eight Senses
We have many different senses. The most well known are the five traditional senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. In addition, we have 3 significant internal senses.
The three internal senses
Awareness of pressure and force on your body, and knowing where your body is in space/its location. Differences with proprioceptive processing mean you might bump into things or feel the need to chew or bite down on toys or clothing. You also might need to keep moving about even when others around you are sitting still.
Awareness of balance and movement. If you have a high threshold you may need to rock, spin or swing lots more than other people. If you have a low threshold you might avoid swings and movement altogether!
Awareness and understanding of what’s going on inside our bodies, such as how we feel hunger, pain, needing the toilet, or whether we are hot and cold. Interoception can also help us with body signals about how we are feeling emotionally. Someone with different interoception processing may feel these signals more acutely than others, or they may struggle to pick up these signals at all.
Sensory processing and ND
Lots of us have differences in sensory processing without it getting in the way of everyday life. However, the sensory processing differences in neurodivergent individuals can be much more significant; this can lead to great enjoyment as well as significant challenges. It can be extremely challenging for neurodivergent individuals’ sensory systems to be well balanced in the noisy, busy and highly stimulating neurotypical world we live in.
Sometimes an individual might need more sensory information (hypo-sensitive) while others might need less information (hyper-sensitive) to feel “just right”. These sensory processing differences and needs can change within the same person across each hour, week and month, depending on the person’s environment and emotional and physical health.
These internal and environmental factors may lead to a person’s sensory processing being quickly overwhelmed by what or how they are feeling. This can be called ‘sensory overload’. This can then cause challenges in carrying out daily routines or activities.
This video helps us understand how a neurodivergent individual might experience an everyday experience such as visiting a shopping centre.
How sensory processing might look in ND children/young people
Sensory overload can happen when things in the environment overstimulate an individual’s senses, e.g. a hot crowded room or a smelly noisy dinner hall. There is suddenly so much information coming through our senses that our brains cannot separate the experiences, process them or manage them comfortably. This can cause challenges in carrying out daily routines or activities.
Most people experience sensory overload from time to time. However, neurodivergent individuals often experience sensory overload more often and more intensely. This can make it incredibly challenging for them to self-regulate their emotions.
Someone experiencing sensory overload might have feelings of ‘flight or fight’, as well as overexcitement, irritability, anxiety, physical discomfort or fear. This may lead to the child/young person ‘flipping their lid’.
Children and young people with sensory processing differences tend to experience emotions very differently to their peers and may respond to their emotions in ways that lead to social judgements e.g. meltdowns, anger or wanting to hide. Our emotions page has more information on emotions and neurodivergence.
Neurodivergent children may feel pressured to change themselves to fit in. This is known as masking, which can be exhausting and even harmful to a young person’s health and well-being.
Some neurodivergent people describe experiencing ‘sensory hangovers’; they can feel extremely emotional, stressed, overwhelmed and/or exhausted after being in highly stimulating environments, e.g. school, work, shopping centres, music concerts. When they return home, the individual may want to be in a quiet, dimly light space and find it challenging to talk or interact with others due to the strong sensory overwhelm and fatigue they are experiencing. It’s important that we honour and advocate for children’s sensory differences and the adaptions needed.
Sensory regulation and autonomy
Ultimately, the aim is for you/your child to have sensory autonomy – the ability to understand and advocate for your own sensory differences and needs. Individual help is likely to be needed to understand the human senses, personal sensory processing and individual sensory needs. This may take time and be worked on over several years.
In the meantime, you, as a young person or parent/carer, can make small changes to your environment and daily routine to help accommodate for sensory differences, likes and dislikes. You may already have developed some strategies and sensory routines to help keep regulated which is great.
My teenage son will often get very distressed and ask me to turn out the lights because he struggles with this. It can also be calming for autistic children to have a sensory tent. They can also struggle with body position and movement. Read more
Emily, parent
Support Strategies
It will take time to learn about your/your child’s individual sensory preferences before working out which strategies to try. Please don’t expect big changes overnight. It can take several months for sensory strategies to be used effectively. Try to persist with strategies but you can always leave a strategy and come back to it if it doesn’t work straightaway.
For things that are essential in your everyday life, such as putting on clothes or going to school, it can help to identify individual likes and dislikes, e.g. light levels, noise levels, textures. It may help to use physical objects or pictures to help identify and express these likes and dislikes.
You can then accommodate these sensory preferences across your life, both at home and school. It may help, in some situations, to keep encouraging different sensory stimuli experiences. This can help reduce anxiety; completely avoiding situations can sometimes make it worse in the long run. But it’s really important that when they do these things, you have strategies in place to make them bearable and for the child/young person to communicate if it’s too much.
It’s OK to be different from other people – to help reduce stress in your/your child’s life, it can be ok to make choices that suit individual sensory preferences.
Do not judge or presume you know how that individual is feeling. Try to ask them how it feels and what they need, if they are able to tell you.
Simple every day activities can place huge demand on ND individuals, e.g. getting dressed/changed, brushing teeth, stopping one activity and starting another.
Reduce any unnecessary demands on the individual where you can, e.g. keep it to things they really need to do, particularly in challenging moments. This can help reduce anxiety.
Lots of sensory needs can be accommodated for with a little preparation at both home and school/education.
Labels can be cut out of clothes and some schools now accept jogging bottoms as part of their uniform. Lights can be dimmed, coloured or used differently throughout the day. Schools can offer a distraction-free, uncluttered area to work.
Try to keep your emotions and communication calm. Use very little language and pause in between your sentences. You may need to repeat what you’re saying, slowly and calmly with pauses in between.
Ear defenders are now widely available and can reduce noise to a bearable level for a neurodivergent individuals. Fiddle toys help keep fingers busy! Your local Occupational Therapist will be able to support with other equipment needs such as wobble cushions to sit on, weighted cushions or blankets, or safe chewable toys.
Have a clear beginning and end for sensory tasks that can’t be avoided. For example, use a sand timer for teeth brushing or tell your child the noise will have finished by the time you’ve counted to ten or sung a song.
A sensory routine is where specific activities are routinely put into place each day to proactively meet the individual’s sensory interests and needs. For example, starting the day with some soft coloured lighting to wake up to; having a smelly toy to smell on the journey to school each day; doing a physical activity that includes a lot of jumping for 5 minutes straight after school; ending the day with a warm bath and lots of time to play with water.
You/your child could make a list of a range of sensory experiences/activities you/they like and you create a routine together to fit these in across your daily activities. The activities that work well for you/your child will be highly individual and may take some experimentation to find what you/they enjoy most.
Proactively allowing opportunities to meet and exercise sensory interests will decrease anxiety across the day and support the ability to focus and engage in other more challenging activities.
Create a sensory checklist to help work out what changes can be made. Complete this yourself/together with the young person where possible.
You could use this from STARS
Sensory circuits can significantly help keep an individual’s overall anxiety and dysregulation levels down.
Reach out for support from other parents/people with lived experiences to problem solve together. Someone else will have been there and will have ideas to offer! Local and national support groups can be found here
It can help to plan ahead and adjust your routine/activities before hand. For example:
- If you know your child doesn’t like noisy, busy supermarkets, choose to go earlier when it is quieter, or find out if and when your shop has a designated quiet time. Alternatively, go alone, if and when you can.
- Plan your trips out and incorporate lots of movement breaks, or squeeze in a trip to a park or playground when you can – it doesn’t have to be for long.
- Talk to your child about what they might experience beforehand. Can we change anything to help? E.g., if you are going to a birthday party where there are likely triggers e.g., balloons or sudden singing, perhaps speak to the parents beforehand about whether balloons could be avoided or kept in one room? Could you take some sensory toys and/or ear defenders?
STARS team - sensory support
The Leeds STARS Team website have a range of high quality information and recommendations on supporting sensory differences, including sensory checklists, profiles and sensory breaks and circuits.
Go to STARSSheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust - Sensory Processing Strategies
Strategies related to each individual sense can be found on Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust’s website.
Go to resourceJoining in with Sensory Differences
A wide range of information and advice about sensory processing can be found on NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s website page – Joining in with sensory differences
Go to resourceMaking sense of your sensory behaviour
There is lots of helpful information and ideas of how to support sensory differences in this booklet from Falkirk Council
Go to resourceSensory Packs
The Caudwell Charity can help fund autism sensory packs for families with autistic children, if you meet their criteria.
Go to resourceWhat is sensory processing?
The Humber Sensory Processing Hub provides detailed resources and information to educate families about sensory processing in children across different environments.
Go to resourceOccupational Therapy support in Leeds
Occupational Therapists often see children who find ordinary daily living activities challenging. This can sometimes include supporting children with sensory differences to carry out the activities they want and need to do. A “sensory offer” is being developed in Leeds to create a joined-up approach to help parents, and other professionals and schools, better understand children’s sensory needs and how to manage them in everyday life situations.
Go to LCH site