Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) is not a single diagnosis, rather, the term refers to a diverse group of disorders that reflect dysfunction within the brain’s ability to make sense of sensory information it receives from the body and the environment (Case-Smith, 1998)
There are six sensory systems within the body:
• Vestibular –
Interprets the position of the head and body movements
• Proprioceptive –
Interprets information from muscles and joints, as to where one part of the body is in relation to another
• Tactile –
Interprets information regarding touch
• Visual –
Interprets stimuli through the eyes
• Auditory –
Interprets sounds
• Gustatory/Olfactory –
Interprets taste and smell
In a typically developing child these systems work together to provide the brain with information regarding the body, its location or movement and the world around them. We need a mixture of the senses working together –“sensory diet” to fully understand our relationship to the environment.
However, in a child with SID, the brain cannot understand the information received from one or more of these systems. The sensory receptors are working but the brain has difficulty processing the information As SID usually affects more than one sense this disorder therefore produces a baffling amount of behaviours depending on which of the sensory systems are affected and whether the child is sensory seeking (hypo-responsive) or sensory avoiding (hyper-responsive).
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