July 2021 Parenta magazine

Celebrating difference and
neurodivergence - part 4
Other people sense different things
This article is the fourth article in a series of six from Sensory Engagement and Inclusion Specialist
Joanna Grace, the activities described in each article build up to form a toolkit for celebrating
difference and neurodivergence within your setting in a way that will benefit both the children and
the adults. Joanna runs online training courses focused on strategies for supporting differently abled
children and promoting inclusive practice. Click here for more information.
In the first three articles in this series,
we have explored simple craft activities
you can do with children to help them
explore and understand the differences
between people, and we have challenged
ourselves to support those explorations
using non-judgemental language to
describe those differences. The impact of
doing this was explored in the last article.
In this article, we are going to consider
sensory differences; you can explore these
with children using the feelie bag activity
described as ‘Feelie box’ on page 16.
You may have noticed a rise in children
who have sensory differences in your
setting. This is a phenomenon many
settings are experiencing, it’s not just you!
Knowledge and awareness of sensory
needs and differences have grown in
recent years which is leading to greater
identification and the landscape of
childhood has changed, which means
children coming through your settings
now may have different sensory skills
compared to children ten or twenty years
ago.
There is a lot of confusion around sensory
differences, and that can lead to the
sorts of harmful narratives we’ve been
discussing through this series. So in this
article, I’m going to share an analogy
I find useful for thinking about sensory
processing differences.
Imagine a child’s sensory systems are
controlled by a set of volume controls in
their brain. These are used to tune into
the information in the world. If their sense
organs work, they pick up the information,
and if the volume is set correctly, it
arrives at the brain at the perfect level for
processing.
Some children are born with broken
volume controls. That is to say they have a
physiological difference in their brain which
means that sense information comes
through either too quietly for their brain to
hear, or too loud for it to bear. The result
of this shows in their response to their
sensory environment.
Children have to learn how to operate their
sensory volume controls. Actually watching
a child play with a real volume control is
perfect for cementing our understanding of
this. At first, the sound is too quiet, so they
turn it up. Only they haven’t got the fine
motor control required and so they turn
it far too far up and now the sound is too
loud. It will take them a while of adjusting
the volume up and down before they get
to the perfect level, whereas someone with
the relevant fine motor skills might be able
to adjust straight there.
The skill of tuning in and out to sensory
information, one you use as you listen
to a conversation against background
noise, or read a sign on a busy high street,
is developed through early childhood
experiences. Some childhoods are rich in
sensory experiences, and other childhoods
are limited. If you were able to get out
of the house, roll down a grassy bank,
swing from trees, climb a climbing frame,
bounce on a trampoline, you have had a
very different set of sensory experiences
from the child whose house was small
and far from an outdoor play space who
entertained themselves on a screen whilst
seated.
Some children present with sensory
differences because they have missed
out on the opportunity to develop sensory
skills (to develop their operation of those
volume controls) and some children present
with sensory differences because their
volume controls are broken. And there
are different ways they could be broken,
perhaps they are set too high, or too low,
and just stuck there, or perhaps they have
been overly greased so that no matter how
carefully someone operates them, they
slide around becoming too high or too low.
It is important to think about these
distinctions because an approach that is
a supportive of one child could be cruel
to another. If I am someone who needs
practice to learn to focus on a visual
stimulus, then asking me to engage in
activities that have me practice that skill
is going to be beneficial to me. However,
if I am someone whose visual volume
control is turned up full whack so that
visual stimulus hurts my eye, being asked
to engage in that activity isn’t going to help
me, it’s going to hurt me. And again, the
misunderstandings and narratives created
around this are harmful. The risk is that
the narrative will be that I didn’t try hard
enough, or wouldn’t focus, that it was my
fault that the therapy that supported my
peer does not work for me.
A parent recently asked me how their son
could have struggled with loud noises when
he was younger but now got into trouble
at home for making loud noises. When you
think of the volume control analogy this
seemingly counterintuitive situation makes
sense. When he was born, the volume on
his hearing wasn’t right for his interaction
with the world, so he’s adjusted it, only he’s
gone too far in the opposite direction. With
some children with sensory differences,
you could witness changes like this hour
to hour. It’s important we are sympathetic
and do not judge their experience as being
supposed to be like our own.
Listen out for the judgement in things you
say “You’re being too loud” – what you
mean is “too loud for me”, they might be
exactly the right volume for them! It is easy
for us to think the sensory landscape as we
experience it is fixed. We have made sure
the room is lit appropriately, it is the right
temperature, the music we are playing is
not too loud, and so on. But what we have
done is created a space that suits us and
our sensory needs. The sensory needs of
the children may be different.
Using a feelie bag is a good way of
exploring our sensory likes and dislikes
and talking to one another about them. Try
including items that are likely to highlight
that experience is unique to the individual.
A good one I often find is cotton wool,
some people love the feel other people say
it makes the hairs on the back of their neck
stand on end! Remember as you talk about
these differences, work hard to weed out
the judgement from your language. Doing
so can be enormously powerful!
Jo provides in-person and online training to
settings looking to enhance their inclusive
practice for more information visit www.
TheSensoryProjects.co.uk where you can
also find resources to help you include
children of all abilities. Jo is active on social
media and welcomes connection requests
from people curious about inclusive
practice.
Joanna Grace
Joanna Grace is an international
Sensory Engagement and Inclusion
Specialist, trainer, author, TEDx speaker
and founder of The Sensory Projects.
Consistently rated as “outstanding” by
Ofsted, Joanna has taught in
mainstream and special school settings,
connecting with pupils of all ages and
abilities. To inform her work, Joanna
draws on her own experience from her
private and professional life as well as
taking in all the information she can
from the research archives. Joanna’s
private life includes family members
with disabilities and neurodiverse
conditions and time spent as a
registered foster carer for children with
profound disabilities.
Joanna has published four practitioner
books: “Multiple Multisensory Rooms:
Myth Busting the Magic”, “Sensory
Stories for Children and Teens”,
“Sensory-Being for Sensory Beings”
and “Sharing Sensory Stories and
Conversations with People with
Dementia”. and two inclusive sensory
story children’s books: “Voyage to
Arghan” and “Ernest and I”. There is
new book coming out soon called ‘”The
Subtle Spectrum” and her son has
recently become the UK’s youngest
published author with his book, “My
Mummy is Autistic”.
Joanna is a big fan of social media and
is always happy to connect with people
via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Website:
thesensoryprojects.co.uk
14 July 2021 | parenta.com
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