[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ theme_builder_area=”post_content” _builder_version=”4.27.8″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.8″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.27.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ theme_builder_area=”post_content” _builder_version=”4.27.8″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”1px||0px|||”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.8″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.27.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.8″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
Sensory processing is how the nervous system takes in information from the body and the environment and decides what to do with it. When that process is efficient, a child can sit through dinner, tolerate a haircut, and shift from the playground to the car without the transition costing them anything. When it is not, ordinary parts of the day become genuinely hard.<\/p>\n
Jump to:<\/strong><\/p>\n Every waking second, the nervous system is filtering. Light, noise, the seam of a sock, the smell of the kitchen, the position of the arms in space. Most of it never reaches conscious attention, and that filtering is the point: it frees a child to attend to the teacher, the meal, or the conversation.<\/p>\n Sensory processing describes how well that filtering and organizing works. Alongside the five senses parents already know, two others matter clinically and are rarely mentioned outside a therapy room:<\/p>\n The sense of where the body is and how much force it is using. It comes from muscles and joints.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The sense of movement, head position and balance. It comes from the inner ear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n These two systems explain a great deal of what parents describe as puzzling: the child who leans on people, crashes into the sofa, or cannot sit upright in a chair without their whole body sliding down it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sensory differences run in both directions, and the same child can sit at opposite ends in different systems. A child may be over-responsive to sound and under-responsive to movement at the same time. This is why one label rarely fits, and why strategies borrowed from another family often miss.<\/p>\n Input registers as louder, brighter, or more intense than it does for most children. The response looks like avoidance: covering the ears, refusing certain fabrics, leaving the room when the blender starts, or eating a narrow range of textures. From the outside it can read as refusal. From the inside it is closer to protection.<\/p>\n Input registers faintly, so the child generates more of it. The response looks like movement: spinning, jumping, crashing, chewing on clothing, touching everything on the shelf, or an apparently high pain threshold. This is frequently mistaken for hyperactivity, and it is one of the more common reasons a child is referred for behavior support when what they need is occupational therapy<\/a>.<\/p>\n A useful reframe: a child who is seeking is not misbehaving, they are self-regulating with the tools available to them. The clinical task is to offer better tools, not to remove the only one they have.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sensory differences rarely announce themselves. They surface as a specific part of the day that is disproportionately hard, week after week.<\/p>\n Seams, tags, waistbands and shoes. Mornings run long and end badly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A narrowing range of accepted textures, or distress at the smell of food from another plate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hair washing, nail cutting and dentist visits are resisted well past the age you would expect.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Leaving a place, ending an activity, or moving from a quiet room into a loud one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Difficulty staying seated, covering the ears in the cafeteria, or fatigue that arrives by mid-morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Long settling times, or waking at any change in light, sound or temperature.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If food is the part of the day that concerns you most, we have written separately about reducing mealtime distress at home<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Most of what works is environmental. You are adjusting the demand so the child can meet it, rather than asking them to tolerate more than their nervous system currently can.<\/p>\n The clinical threshold is participation. Sensory preferences are ordinary and every person has them. What warrants an evaluation is when the response limits what a child can take part in.<\/p>\n Worth asking about if any of these have held for more than a few months: the range of accepted foods, clothes or activities is narrowing rather than widening; a routine part of the day reliably ends in distress; school has raised concerns about attention, seating or the cafeteria; or the strategies that work for your other children have no effect on this one.<\/p>\n An occupational therapy evaluation produces a sensory profile, not a verdict. It identifies which systems are involved, in which direction, and what the practical consequences are for your household. From there the plan is written around functional goals: sitting through a meal, tolerating a haircut, staying regulated through the school day.<\/p>\n In Florida, most plans cover occupational therapy<\/a> when medical necessity is documented.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sensory differences are recognized and treated clinically, and they appear as a specifier within other diagnoses. Whether or not a standalone diagnosis is given, the evaluation identifies the same profile and the same plan follows from it.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n Not necessarily. Many children hold themselves together through the school day and release at home, where it is safe to. A pattern of afternoon dysregulation after an apparently fine school day is a common presentation, not a contradiction.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n No. Sensory differences occur in autistic children, in children with ADHD, and in children with neither. An occupational therapy evaluation does not require a prior diagnosis.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n Typically no. The aim is a profile you understand and strategies your household runs on its own. Many children discharge once participation goals are met.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n Frequently they are the same conversation. Oral sensory differences affect eating and sometimes speech sound production, which is why our disciplines share a plan rather than working in parallel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n Describe the part of the day that is hardest and we will tell you whether an evaluation is warranted.<\/p>\n Contact us<\/a> Occupational therapy<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Las diferencias sensoriales no son problemas de conducta. C\u00f3mo se ven la hiperreactividad y la hiporreactividad a lo largo de un d\u00eda normal, qu\u00e9 ayuda en casa y cu\u00e1ndo conviene una evaluaci\u00f3n.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[37,31,36],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everyday-challenges","tag-everyday-routines","tag-occupational-therapy","tag-sensory-processing","sfg-tx-ot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skillsforgrowth.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
What sensory processing means<\/h2>\n
Two directions, not one<\/h2>\n
Over-responsive<\/h3>\n
Under-responsive and sensory-seeking<\/h3>\n
Where it shows up in a day<\/h2>\n
What helps at home<\/h2>\n
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What tends not to help<\/h2>\n
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When an evaluation is warranted<\/h2>\n
Questions parents ask<\/h2>\n
Is sensory processing disorder a real diagnosis?<\/summary>\n
My child only does this at home, never at school. Does that mean it is behavioral?<\/summary>\n
Do we need an autism diagnosis first?<\/summary>\n
Will my child need therapy forever?<\/summary>\n
How does this fit with speech or feeding therapy?<\/summary>\n
Keep reading<\/h2>\n
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Not sure whether what you are seeing is sensory?<\/h2>\n