Sensory Integration

Sensory Integration is the term to describe how we receive, process, filter, organize, and utilize information from the environment and from our own bodies at the neurological level. The systems with which we receive information through our body are our five basic senses: touch, hearing, (also called auditory), sight, (or vision), taste, (gustatory), and smell, (olfactory). Within our brain, or our central nervous system, we have more complex systems called the vestibular system, the proprioceptive system, and the tactile system, where information from the body and environment is received and organized and synthesized for response and function/action. These three systems, though separate entities anatomiclly with sensory receptors throughout our body, use information from each other and synergistically from our basic five senses, to form a response. They integrate, including information from our five senses, for an adaptive, constructive, behavior.

Within the tactile system in Sensory Integration is our protective sense and our discriminative sense. The protective component signals dangerous or harmful stimuli. The discriminative sense helps us discern where we were touched, how deep or light the touch is, and the size, shape, and texture of the object we touch. The tactile receptors are located throughout the skin and are activated by various external stimuli.

Within the vestibular system in Sensory Integration is our sense of balance, or our relationship with gravity and the physical world, and our understanding of movement, such as which direction our body is going and how fast. The vestibular sensory receptors are located in the semicircular canals, utricle, and saccule of the inner ear.

Within the proprioceptive sysem is the integration of touch and movement to inform the brain of where the body is positioned in space, and which muscles are moving and how they are moving. The proprioceptive sensory receptors are located in the muscle tendons, joints, and skin. Active movement of the muscles and joints stimulate the proprioceptive receptors. Postural tone and equilibrium are influenced by the proprioceptive system.

We all have Sensory Integration. How we process sensory information and respond varies throughout the day, and day to day, as our biochemistry, experiences relative to the sensory stimuli, environmental factors, life circumstances, emotions, and the quantity of the stimuli relative to all of these factors, vary.

Dysfunction in Sensory Integration, otherwise described as a "sensory modulation disorder," is exhibited when the responses are extreme and interfere with the person's ability to feel calm and comfortable and behave in a manner typical to other people. Although we all have fluctuations in our sensory integration and responses, disorder in sensory integration impacts a person's behavior, emotional stability, relationships with others, attention, problem solving, and task performance more frequently and intensively than average. Dysfunction may be exhibited by unusual seeking of certain stimuli, or avoidance of stimuli, or expression of high sensitivity or irritability to the stimuli, or the need for an overabundance of a stimulus to elicit a response. We all need a certain degree of sensory stimuli, or elimination of stimuli, to be in the "just right place" for our optimal learning and performance.