What is SPD?

What SPD is in all reality is: a neurobiological disorder that may or may not cause certain delays depending upon your child’s individual profile. It frequently manifests with some extreme behavioral issues, often physical ones such as floppy muscle tone, it may result in speech delays or impairments, it may result in motor planning difficulties, it is all dependent upon your child’s unique profile. Which includes not just the five commonly known senses: taste (gustatory) smell (olfactory) hearing (auditory) sight (visual) and touch (tactile) but two others that individuals are generally unaware exist unless they have either taken a neurobiology course or have known someone with SPD. This is due to the fact that these other two senses when operating normally are processed at an unconscious level of awareness. 

These are the vestibular sense, which essentially communicates to our brain our body’s orientation in space (upside down, right side up, lying down, standing etc.) and the proprioceptive sense, which is input from our tendons and ligaments that impact both gross and fine motor skills. To make things more complex, any one of these seven senses can be overly (hypersensitive) under (hyposensitive) neutral, or mixed; meaning that they can swing from one extreme to the other depending upon a lot of different circumstances and outside factors. So, I realize that was a lot of science and potentially sounds extremely overwhelming. It’s honestly not tremendously difficult to determine your child’s sensory profile, there’s a questionnaire provided in the documents, and I have a pretty good idea once you are asked the right questions, get some background information, and have time to observe and interact with your child on more than one or two occasions. Sometimes you’ll need to put your detective badge on (I will make you one if you would like, because it makes it more fun) and I may ask you to keep a journal and the patterns will emerge over time.

So, as I stated, we have a pervasive neurobiological disorder that often presents in ways that involve multiple areas of specialty, and is typically treated (when correctly diagnosed), by Occupational Therapists (OTs).