The impact sensory issues can have on an individual is often underestimated. Noise, smell, colour, touch and taste can cause some children and adults real discomfort, if not physical pain. How the person is feeling at that moment, calm or anxious, relaxed or agitated, will affect the severity of their response.
To reduce the impact of these issues for children and adults, society needs to be more aware of the part the environment plays in sensory challenges.
Children and sensory issues.
The five main senses are: hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling and smelling.
- Hearing.
Some children’s issues are linked to loud, unexpected noise, for example: fireworks, hand dryers or fire alarms. The child may be always on edge anticipating sudden noises, and this anxiety will make their reaction more severe.
Avoiding loud and unpredictable noise wherever possible is one solution, by for example: removing the child from the classroom before fire drills, and making use of noise cancelling headphones or ear plugs
2. Seeing.
A child with issues in this area, will become agitated when the visual environment is confusing. Classrooms may be too crowded and colourful, while fluorescent lights may flicker and their glare be too harsh.
The child could wear sunglasses or a peaked cap, (indoors as well as outside.) LED changing colour light bulbs may help the individual find a comfortable shade of colour, or a dimmer switch be used to achieve an appropriate level of lighting.
3. Tasting.
The children may be under or over responsive to taste and be fussy eaters. An over responsive child will have a preference for bland, usually beige coloured foods: bread, pasta, oats; while the under responsive child will prefer spicy, highly flavoured or crunchy foods. Many of the children will have a limited diet with very specific food preferences.
However, as long as the diet includes some carbohydrate, fat, protein and so on, with vitamin supplements added, the child is best left rather than risk increasing anxiety issues around food. Most children’s diets gradually expand as their nervous system matures.
4. Feeling.
Children with sensory issues are certain to experience difficulties around clothing. They will insist on always wearing loose baggy clothing; the same T Shirt every day, and shorts even in winter. They will spend hours putting on their socks to avoid the seams rubbing their toes. Buying new shoes will be a nightmare. Clothes always seem too itchy, too colourful, have rough and painful seams or labels that scratch.
Possible solutions include: remove all labels; choose seamless socks made in softer fabric such as bamboo; buy clothes made of natural rather than synthetic fabric; choose shoes with adjustable tabs, straps and removable insoles or wear a stout pair of slippers. Once you find a shoe that the child approves of, buy a few pairs of the same shoe in larger sizes.
Washing, brushing and cutting hair may feel painful, so think laterally to reduce issues: swimming goggles when washing hair to avoid water splashing in the child’s eyes; generous amounts of conditioner to make hair brushing easier, or allow the child to grow their hair long. Cut the child’s hair at home, distracting them with a favourite TV programme or game.
Cutting nails can feel painful, so cut them after soaking in water to soften them or, rather than cutting, use a wooden nail file.
5. Smelling.
Strong smells may make the child gag or feel nauseous. Reduce this sensory difficulty by using un-perfumed soap, bland toothpaste, ecologically friendly washing powder and deodorant, always keeping a good through flow of fresh air in rooms to dilute strong smells.
Often there is a combination of sensory input, for example, in a supermarket. The busy-ness of shoppers; colourful products and signage; shiny, rattling trolleys; canned music and calls over the tannoy; flickering fluorescent lighting; temperature changes in the frozen food section, combined with smells from the fish counter all acting together to create a perfect sensory storm. A simple solution would be on-line shopping.
Every child with sensory challenges is individual with different issues, but it is possible to reduce their difficulties and, with a little lateral thinking, empathy and imagination, accommodate their needs.
Pat Guy Education Specialist & Author 