#sensory input
There’s a hilarious and informative thread going around, probably best known as the “YEET THE CHILD FOR THEIR HEALTH” post.*
While it’s worth a read by its own right, we’d like to bring you one particularly spoonie-oriented reply from Paediatric Occupational Therapist Zoe Gianduzzo:
As adults, does your body ever feel jittering/jiggly/wiggly/like it needs to move or calm down but you just can’t figure out why? That’s your sensory system saying Hey! I need to feel differently in order to function better!
Here’s what you can do:
- Jump up and down (vestibular and proprioception)
- Give yourself big squeezes (proprioception)
- Place your hands on a wall and do push ups (proprioception)
- Do cartwheels (vestibular and proprioception)
- Get someone to give you the biggest bear hug for at least 10 seconds (proprioception and social connection, also proven to help regulate your sensory system into just right zone!)
- Get a drink of water and drink it through a straw OR blow bubbles into the water (way more fun!) (oral motor input and respiration)
- Have a shower or a bath (tactile)
- Stretch and do exercise (vestibular and proprioception)
- Eat something crunchy or chewy (like chips or gum) (oral motor input)
- Listen to some music that suits your mood (auditory)
- etc etc etc! I’m sure you already have a strategy that your body has figured out works for you. I personally like to chew gum when I feel like i need to eat something but I’m not actually hungry and just need that chewing sensation in my jaw.
Long story short, everyone has a sensory system and we all use regulation strategies like the ones listed above to help make our body feel better. So if you ever see someone (especially kids!) fidgeting and having a hard time focusing, maybe suggest something from the list above!
If you’re a leg bouncer, you’ve already found one solution—but now you know why you do it, and some other things that may help.
Big thanks for Zoe for her permission to repost this content! Zoe is on Tumblr as @hjartaohamast-svohljott, and her business is on Facebook as AerialTherapeuticsandInstagram as AerialTherapeutics!
*If you missed the whole “yeet” thing: it’s a new slang term that means to throw or fling something. You can also yell it as you throw something or as a victory cry, but you might get some funny looks if you’re not a Gen Z-er.
We on this blog, of course, encourage you to use it to mortify your children and grandchildren
I was the one who asked if there’s a way to tell if you experience sensory sensitivities or if what you experience is just neurotypical.
So for one, a couple days ago, my step-mom’s friend’s daughter was here. She’s 9-years-old and my brother was “jokingly” scaring her and she would keep screaming at the very top of her lungs and I kept plugging my ears because it hurt. My brother made fun of me and said I was being “stupid” for doing that. To this day, I can’t comprehend how her screaming didn’t hurt his ears. It got to a point where even after she stopped for a while, it felt like my ears were ringing even though they weren’t.
Ever since I was younger, I always told people “I have sensitive hearing” but I only told that to people because I don’t like loud noises unless I can control it (music). I don’t actually know if it’s true that my hearing is sensitive or not, but I notice when I’m the only person plugging my ears, it makes me question. If I can avoid loud noises, I always make the choice to do so. When our dogs are barking and yowling a lot, I get irritated and I can’t stand it. At school, I always avoided pep assemblies if I could because I always told people my hearing was too sensitive to deal with it. But at the same time, I don’t know if I’ve experienced sensory overload caused by anything other than emotional sensory information, if that makes sense…
I get meltdowns and shutdowns, but I always associated them with stressful emotional moments, but I can’t tell if other sensory input like sound or visuals also added to it.
There are textures I hate, like crayons, so through my entire life I have never used crayons if I was given a choice. Certain papers bother me a lot, but I’ve learned to deal with them. I notice when I’m the only person wearing a coat in cold weather. Textures bother me to a point where I’m glad I have to wear gloves at work because every time I touch something gross, dirty, or something that bothers me, I always end up washing my hands.
But at the same time, I can “deal” with these things ?
I experience same-fooding and I have ADHD and I experience SO many autism symptoms, but it’s so hard to know if I am autistic because I have so much trauma and my ADHD is so bad and so is my depression and anxiety that I can’t tell if certain things I experience are due to trauma, ADHD, or it actually is autism, but I can say that I watched a video about one person’s experience with their autism and I cried because I related so much and my autistic friend says that it believes I might be autistic as well.
Original ask date: September 16th
Hi there! Thank you so much for putting in the work to describe your sensory experiences more in detail, so I can give you a better answer.
So upon reading this, no, this is not a neurotypical experience. You observed how neurotypicals respond- they don’t cover their ears. They don’t wear their coat. They touch the crayons and they don’t care about the type of paper.
All of these experiences you listed are sensory sensitivity, to a T. The fact that you are able to “deal” with it isn’t what makes you neurotypical- a neurotypical person doesn’t have to deal with it, because for them, there is nothing to be dealt with. So having to deal with it means there is something there that you’re dealing with- and that thing is sensory sensitivity.
Sensory sensitivity is one of the symptoms that overlaps between ADHD and autism. So it is entirely possible that your sensory-sensitive experiences are caused by your ADHD.
Fromthis scientific study on children with ADHD:
One type of sensory processing problem is sensory over-responsivity or sensory hypersensitivity. That is, individuals respond to sensory stimuli in the way that is faster, longer, or more intense than what is expected. This response can be towards any types of sensory stimuli. Sensory over-responsivity can be considered as an independent diagnosis. For example, a child with tactile sensitivity or defensiveness might be defensive for hair-brushing and/or haircuts because she/he cannot tolerate it easily.
This sounds to me exactly like what you are experiencing.
It makes perfect sense that you would relate to autism experiences in this way, because sensory sensitivity and meltdowns are a very common symptom of autism, and it is one we share with ADHD.
But at the same time, I don’t know if I’ve experienced sensory overload caused by anything other than emotional sensory information, if that makes sense… That makes total sense, and my question is…what else do you think causes sensory overload? Emotional sensory information IS sensory overload. That’s the cause of it. There are two things that contribute to overload in a brain: emotionally distress, and too much sensory input (such as touching Bad Textures or hearing Bad Sounds, etc.) This is exactly what overload is.
I get meltdowns and shutdowns, but I always associated them with stressful emotional moments, but I can’t tell if other sensory input like sound or visuals also added to it. The answer is yes. Emotional distress and sensory distress compound each other. This means if you are emotionally upset, your ability to process sensory input is reduced. Or if you are experiencing sensory distress, then your ability to handle emotions is reduced. They are both things that “fill the overload tank” in your brain, and a person can get overloaded from either Too Much emotions OR Too Much sensory input OR a combo of both.
None of these experiences are neurotypical. Both are things experienced by people with ADHD and people with autism. Both ADHD and autism have a lot in common, and so people with one very often relate to the experiences of people with the other.
You also may have autism as well. It is very common for people who have one to also have the other. So if you feel you might have autism too, it can’t hurt to go and get tested for it. If there are some symptoms you experience that ADHD doesn’t explain, that is an indication you may have autism as well. But you are most certainly neurodiverse, and it makes perfect sense that you would related to autistic experiences regarding sensory experiences and meltdowns, because those are not neurotypical experiences at all.
