More than 5 Senses?
The process of taking in information through the senses, organizing this information, and using it to function in daily life is called sensory integration. Sensory integration takes place automatically during typical development. We have long been taught that our bodies take in information through five senses. These senses, sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing, are external senses that tell us about our surrounding environment. Our bodies also receive input from internal senses. Two of the lesser known but equally important senses are proprioception and vestibular sense.
Proprioception is our joint sense and is provided every time our joints move and are compressed. This information allows us to know the position of our body and limbs without always looking at them to know where they are. This sense also helps us detect how much pressure we should apply in activities such as picking up a paper cup or how tightly we should grasp a pencil.
Our vestibular system is located deep in our inner ear and processes gravity and movement. This sense allows us to balance and
know when we are falling. We also use our vestibular system to let us know how much our muscles need to work to hold our body up for activities like sitting up to listen in school or catching a heavy ball without falling down.
These senses (proprioception and vestibular), along with our touch sense, are critical for allowing us to respond quickly to life’s ever-changing environments, demonstrating effective sensory integration.
Sensory integration evolves as the central nervous system develops and matures.
As we grow and learn more advanced skills and acquire more knowledge, our sensory system is able to handle more complex sensory information. Children with sensory integration issues do not process the information they receive through the senses efficiently. The behaviors of a child with sensory integration differences are extremely varied, which can make sensory integration difficulties hard to detect... Children may display different behaviors from a day-to-day or moment-to-moment basis.
A child with sensory differences may be okay with getting dressed on one day, but may feel overwhelmed by getting dressed on another day.
Some children may be more sensitive to sensory information, others may seek out more.
Some may have difficulty playing sports, while others may have a hard time learning how to write or draw.
