Sensory Integration and Processing

Hiya everyone.

I haven't seen much on the forum about sensory overload, and as it's something I've been learning about after my own assessnent, I thought I'd write a bit, share some knowledge and share some acknowledgement to those struggling.

People primarily think of there being five senses, but there are now eight recognised ones. Visual, auditory, gustatory (taste), tactile, olfactory (smell), vesitublar (balance), proprioceptive (movement), and interoceptive (internal).

The last three, you may not have heard much about. Vestibular is to do with the receptors in your ears. This sense in particular can really help to regulate, so you may see others, or you yourself may rock to regulate. My body knew it needed it even before my assessment so I did it occasionally before being encouraged to do it more.

Proprioceptive can be really helpful to ground ourselves. Our coordination is linked to this sense. You may be really good at small, fiddly tasks, but find it harder to do gross motor activities, such as driving, where your whole body is needed, or vice versa.

Interoception is a hard one, and still much more research is taking place. This is the sense that tells us if we are hungry, thirsty, too hot, even down to our emotions. So sometimes we may not recognise these sensations, mistake them for others, feel them in unusual parts of our body, or be overwhelmed by them.

For people who struggle with sensory issues, each sense will either be modulation, discrimination, or both.

Modulation is being overwhelmed by a sense, in simple terms, and discrimination is having a hard time perceiving it. It might be that we don't recognise it, or don't know whether it is important or not for our brain to process.

Having both modulation and discrimination for a sense is very hard, as many won't recognise the 0-99 but be so overwhelmed at the 100, so it is harder to work on it before reaching a meltdown point.

So what can you do to help yourself? This will very much be personal to you, for it is determined by each sense, and what you need more of, or are overwhelmed by. Sometimes, we can aid ourselves by using senses together, for example using both touch and vision to find something in a bag.

As I listed above, some senses are particularly helpful for regulating, and stimming strategies will help, whatever they look like to you. They can help both in the moment, and if you know something is coming up, you can use these strategies before. Some people use them everyday, at a regular interval. Sometimes it will be very natural and your body will help you know what to do.

Things like music are helpful. Outsider's may question, how it can help if you get auditory overload, but you are in control of it. It may not be effective for some people.

To all the people struggling, you are not alone. It's okay to let your mask down. Its okay to need different things to others. Please don't best yourself up for it.

Its a lot of info but thought someone might benefit from it. Happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability 💜