“Janie runs away from the room with her hands covering her ears when I turn on the vacuum cleaner”
“Aaron dislikes touching and being touched. When someone wants to shake his hands, he immediately crosses his arms with his hands under his arms.”
“Aoife gets immediately sick when she feel the scent of any perfume, however mild it may be”
These are just some examples of over-responsivity to different stimuli. Sometimes it is also called Sensory Defensiveness and is nothing more than a much quicker and more intense response of the brain to stimuli received from one of the sensory senses. This may occur with one sense or in a combination of two or more.
Children with over-responsivity can be challenged by transitions. The smallest change is often an enormous stress to readjust, so these children avoid all kind of changes. They can be simple things such as going to bed or going from inside the house to the car. This avoidance happens because the children with these difficulties try to create a comfort zone avoiding the over stimulation coming from the outside world. Changes disrupt this effort.
When challenged by changes or in face of an “aggressive” stimulus, the child’s reactions are usually cries, shouts and all sorts of tantrums.
Sensory based Occupational Therapy is recommended with these children to improve their modulation (“analysis”) of the “aggressive” stimuli from the surrounding environment.
An interesting book to read is “Sensational Kids” by Lucy Jane Miller where this and other topics are approached.
by Rodrigo Frade