Sensory Dysfunction

The Highly Sensitive Person:

In her national bestseller, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, author Elaine Aron defines a distinct personality trait that affects as many as one out of every five people. According to Dr Aron’s definition, the highly sensitive person (HSP) has a sensitive nervous system, is aware of subtleties in his/her surroundings, and is more easily overwhelmed when in a highly stimulating environment.
But the key quality is that, compared to the 80% without the trait, they process everything around them much more—reflect on it, elaborate on it, make associations. When this processing is not fully conscious, it surfaces as intuition. This represents a survival strategy found in a many species, always in a minority of its members.


When a person can regulate their nervous system at will, they can choose to enter a neutral space. various forms of biofeedback, meditation or mindfulness help us to find our own way from chaos to peace.



Sensory Integration:

Sensory integration refers to how people use the information provided by all the sensations coming from within the body and from the external environment. We usually think of the senses as separate channels of information, but they actually work together to give us a reliable picture of the world and our place in it. Your senses integrate to form a complete understanding of who you are, where you are, and what is happening around you. Because your brain uses information about sights, sounds, textures, smells, tastes, and movement in an organized way, you assign meaning to your sensory experiences, and you know how to respond and behave accordingly. Walking through a shopping mall, if you smell a powerful, sweet scent, you are able to identify it as a candle or essential oil and realize that you're walking past an aromatherapy store. You may linger a moment to enjoy it or hurry by to escape it.

For others, sensory integration happens inefficiently. People with SI dysfunction have great difficulty figuring out what is going on inside and outside their bodies, and there's no guarantee that the sensory information they're working with is accurate. In response, a child may avoid confusing or distressing sensations – or seek out more of the sensation to find out more about it. For example, a child who has difficulty integrating tactile (touch) input may avoid unpleasant touch experiences such as getting his hands messy with paint, sand, or glue, while another child may crave such touch input and actively seek it out.