• Our everyday activities require something called sensory integration, which refers to the way the nervous system receives messages from the senses and turns them into appropriate motor and behavioral responses. Whether you are biting into a hamburger, riding a bicycle, or reading a book, your successful completion of the activity requires processing sensation or "sensory integration." SPD is a condition that exists when sensory signals don't get organized into appropriate responses.
• SPD can sometimes look like AD/HD and is often misdiagnosed as AD/HD.
• SPD can affect just one sense, like touch, or multiple senses.
• SPD can cause hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity. For example, Tommy who is hypersensitive to touch often lashes out at children who get too close. He also may have a lower tolerance for pain, so when someone hits him his response seems out of proportion; however, the pain he experiences is legitimate. On the other hand, Sally who is hyposensitive to touch feels the need to always be close to people. She can seem very affectionate, but really just needs to touch your face or caress your hair because her body is telling her to do so. She also has a high tolerance for pain. She can sometimes lash out if she isn’t receiving enough tactile input, which is why she cried yesterday when Tommy wouldn’t hold her hand or threw herself in the floor because she needed to feel more pressure.
• Children with SPD are often clumsy, uncoordinated, and have poor balance and motor skills. This is because their body is not sending the appropriate signals to their brains.
• Children with SPD sometimes chew on things or appear to have “tics.”
• Children with SPD are often picked on because they can be withdrawn (due to hypersensitivity like Tommy), or because they are too “in your face” (due to hyposensitivity like Sally).
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