- Hey, everybody.
Today we're gonna talk about sensory processing disorder.
What is it and how do we treat it?
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but let's jump into today's topic.
Now, sensory processing disorder is not something
that's currently recognized as a medical
or mental health condition on its own.
Therefore, we won't find it in the DSM
or any other diagnostic manuals.
Sensory process or sensory integration
is the way in which our central nervous system of the body
receives messages from the senses and uses that information
to act in an appropriate motor or behavioral response.
Therefore, sensory processing disorder, or SPD,
which has also been called sensory integration dysfunction,
is a condition in which the sensory signals,
all those signals that we're receiving
by our central nervous system, do not become organized
into an appropriate response and I just wanna take a minute
to make sure that you understand that.
We're constantly bombarded with signals that we take in
through all five senses, right?
And, our central nervous system organizes those
so we can respond appropriately, meaning if we touch
something hot, we jerk our fingers away.
We don't actually have to think about it
in order to have that immediate response.
However, when we have a sensory processing disorder,
we're not able to do that.
Things can get confused and sounds and tastes
and textures and everything can be extremely overwhelming.
Now, sensory processing disorder, which I'll now refer to
as SPD, just for ease of speech, may affect only one sense,
like only hearing, or it can affect many senses
and every person with SPD will react differently
and have different intensity of responses to stimuli.
Just like everything, everybody's gonna be different.
This means that some people with SPD
will have an overreaction to a stimuli.
This could be screaming, vomiting, throwing a tantrum,
or people can have an under-reaction,
like not covering your ears when a loud noise goes by,
like a fire truck or something like that,
or not responding to physical touch.
Someone touches you and we just don't even know.
We don't even know what to do with that.
Or, we taste really, really salty food that's kinda gross
and we just don't spit it out.
We're like, whatever.
It can be over or under-response.
Not everyone is gonna act the same.
While SPD isn't diagnosable on its own,
the issues that come along with it are often,
therefore, attributed to autism spectrum disorder
and many professionals, just so you know, myself included,
believe that this does need to change.
That SPDs do need to be included in the DSM
and other diagnostic manuals.
However, after reading about sensory processing disorders,
as a whole, I could also see a lot of the symptoms
being part of misophonia, various phobias,
PTSD, schizophrenia, ADHD,
or even Borderline Personality Disorder
and if you're curious about any of the diagnoses
that I just rattled off, I'll leave all the links
to my videos in the description so you can click
down there and learn more.
I also think it's important to note that this isn't
something that's understood by all healthcare professionals.
I personally wasn't even trained or taught about this
in school, at all, so it's important that you find someone
who understands and specializes in sensory issues.
After reading about sensory processing disorders,
as a whole, they believe there to be four types of them
and the first sensory processing disorder I wanna talk about
is sensory modulation disorder.
Now, this disorder is characterized by the struggle
to regulate our intensity of response to sensory stimuli.
Someone with this disorder may hate textures
of certain foods or hate having their hair or teeth brushed
and all of those things that they cannot stand,
all the textures and feelings and stuff like that
are not upsetting to most people.
The second SPD is sensory discrimination disorder.
Now, this disorder is characterized by a difficulty
accurately identifying qualities of a stimuli,
meaning that they may use too much or too little force
when doing a project.
They could break something and not even realize
that they're using that much strength
or that the strength they used is too much.
They could also struggle to pick an item
out of a cluttered background.
If we had a bunch of stuff scattered on the wall
and I told them to grab the keys that are hanging
on that nail, they might not be able to see it
and would have a really hard time finding those keys
or they could also possibly move too fast
or too slow for an activity.
The third sensory processing disorder I wanna talk about
is postural ocular disorder.
This disorder is characterized by a struggle
to manage visual and bodily movements.
Therefore, people with this disorder can have a hard time
balancing, tracking items in their eye line,
and they can struggle to control their body movements
and the amount of strength that's needed
to complete a task.
Some people even reported that they aren't able
to discern between their dominant and non-dominant hand.
And, the fourth and final SPD I wanna talk about
is dyspraxia and this is when people struggle to plan,
schedule, or execute things in a sequence.
This can make is really hard for them to do everything
they need to do each and every day.
It can be difficult to move from one task to another
and they can even struggle with fine motor coordination.
As for the causes of SPD, we don't really know.
They've linked it to hypersensitivity to light
and they also know that there's a genetic link,
but more research definitely needs to be done
in order to fully understand it.
But now, let's get into the good news
'cuz there is treatment available and there are things
we can do to manage better and the most recommended
type of treatment for SPDs is occupational therapy.
Now, since I haven't talked about occupational therapy
very much, just know that it's a type of therapy
for those who are recuperating from either a physical
or mental illness and it encourages rehabilitation
through the performance of activities
required in your daily life.
What this means is the occupational therapist will help you
better engage in the meaningful activities
of your daily life.
They'll meet you where you are emotionally
and behaviorally and will help you set goals accordingly.
Now, I know occupational therapy can be difficult
to kinda pin down and, well, daily life,
there's a lot that goes on, but they meet you
where you're at, so whatever you're able to accomplish,
they're not gonna work on that.
They're gonna work with you on the things
you struggle to do every day.
Maybe we struggle to set goals and to execute something
that needs to get done or maybe we struggle
to brush our hair 'cuz we hate that feeling.
They'll work with you so that you can push through
some of that un-comfortability that comes
with a sensory processing disorder so that you're able
to do everything you need to each and every day.
They also recommend speech and language therapy as well
and they've also talked a lot about SCERTS,
and that's S-C-E-R-T-S
and this is a research-based educational model
for people on the autism spectrum.
For more information on this, you can click the link
in the description because there's so much to read
about each and every one of these types of treatment.
Now, if the person who is struggling
with a sensory processing disorder is a child,
there's also DIR method, which is a developmental,
individual difference in relationship based method
and it uses a lot of floor time as part of its treatment
and a lot of people have reported
that it's super beneficial, but the overall goal
of all these different types of treatment
is sensory integration and this can be done
using many various types of therapy,
but the goal is to help us to be able
to be around stimuli that used to be upsetting
or triggering and feel able to respond
in an appropriate fashion.
My whole goal of this video is just to make you aware,
if you didn't already know, that these disorders do exist
and that there is help available.
Like I talked about in the past, the DSM is not then end-all
be-all and not everything that we struggle with
will be noted in a diagnostic manual,
but that doesn't mean that we should suffer in silence.
Occupational therapy and other treatments I mentioned
can and do help, so reach out, speak up,
and know that it will get better.
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but thanks for watching and I will see you next time.
Bye.