Sensory Regulation Explained

What is sensory regulation? It might be a term that you hear your child’s therapist use often. In simple terms, sensory regulation is how our body processes and regulates all the different sensory stimuli it encounters.

Our body is constantly taking in different sensations both outside and inside our body, and our body needs to regulate how it reacts to those other sensations. Did you know that your body has eight senses? These include:

(1) auditory (hearing),

(2) oral or gustatory (taste)

(3) olfactory (smell),

(4) visual (sight)

(5) tactile (touch).

(6) interoceptive (heart rate, thirst),

(7) vestibular (movement),

(8) proprioceptive (body awareness).

You are probably familiar with the first five, but the last three are not as commonly known. They are likely terms you may hear your child’s therapist using. However, all of these are a part of what everyone’s nervous system needs to regulate daily. 

The Nervous System and Sensory Regulation

With so much sensory input coming in from all different places, it is a considerable task to regulate and discern all of these sensations. That’s where sensory regulation comes in. Sensory regulation takes place in the nervous system. The nervous system is responsible for processing sensory input. The two core parts of the nervous system are the central and peripheral nervous systems. The central nervous system is the brain and spinal cord, which process the sensory input from the peripheral nervous system, or your five sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin). The central nervous system is also responsible for telling your body what to do and how to react to this sensory input.

Long story short, your nervous system is responsible for taking in sensory information from both inside and outside your body and processing it.

What Happens When Things Go Wrong?

Everybody takes in sensations differently. In other words, we each respond to our environment and sensory input differently. Some of us can be extremely sensitive to smell, or particular tastes, while others can handle eating a lot of spicy foods. This sort of variation is typical.

Issues with sensory regulation can become problematic when someone becomes overstimulated or under-stimulated. Again, to a certain degree, we all become overstimulated or under-stimulated from time to time. In these cases, we seek to give our nervous system whatever we need to relax or consume some riled-up energy, like a hard workout or a cup of chamomile tea to wind down.

However, it can be overwhelming and uncomfortable if the body processes the sensory input incorrectly. This could lead to avoidance behaviors or more difficult outbursts. Sometimes, when sensory input gets out of whack, it is difficult to figure out what the body needs to calm down, which can result in behaviors such as tantrums, aggressiveness, anxiety, breakdowns, or sensory seeking (like deep pressure). You can read more about this here. Not to say that a sensory processing issue causes every behavior, but certain behaviors like these can be attributed. That’s why it’s crucial for occupational, speech, and physical therapists to identify what is causing a child’s behavior and approach it appropriately. When the problem is identified, the child can be given the proper sensory input or exposure to calm down.

• Source

  Mouton-Odum, Suzanne. “Helping Your Child with Sensory Regulation: Skills to Manage the Emotional and Behavioral Components of Your Child’s Sensory Processing Challenges,” New Harbinger Publications, 2021. https://discovery-ebsco-com.ezproxy.uakron.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=341b0291-5037-36bb-ae73-5209baaa1b4f.