Just Another Sensory Experience

By Dave Nelson

Executive Director

The Community School

Part of every individual’s profile is his or her “sensory reactivity.”  How do we react to sensory input, and how does this affect our ability to connect and interact with the world?  The myriad ways in which sensory input comes into play is striking, but often overlooked.  Here are just a few examples from recent encounters with students at school:

• Long Pants.  Some people simply don’t like the feeling of long pants on their skin.  Their particular tactile reactivity may make the experience of long pants uncomfortable.  In addition, the waistband or a belt might feel uncomfortable at the waist.  So wearing shorts might not be so bad in Georgia, but imagine how one’s life might be affected by having to spend energy avoiding situations in which long pants are required.  (On the flip side, I actually know a boy who never wears shorts because he doesn’t like the feeling of the air on his legs.)

• Fluorescent Lights.  Some people are very sensitive to the flickering of a fluorescent light.  Most of us are bothered by a light that is burning out, but many are also affected by a well functioning fluorescent bulb.  An individual’s visual sensitivity may be such that simply being in a room lit with this kind of bulb can be unsettling or uncomfortable.  Imagine how many fluorescent bulbs we encounter every day.

• Ambient Noise.  Some people have a hard time filtering out background noise; their auditory discrimination systems struggle to identify “important” and “unimportant” noise, and they can’t easily focus on the right sounds.  Imagine if the dog barking outside was just as prominent in your hearing as the person standing right next to you.  Imagine if every time you heard a vacuum down the hall you became alert and nervous.

Shoes and socks.  Lots of people have various kinds of discomfort around shoes and socks.  Some would rather go barefoot; others never want to be barefoot.  Some prefer loose, unrestrictive shoes with no support; others want a tight, “bound up” feeling.  At school, we ask students to wear sneakers for PE, hiking shoes for Thursdays, and shoes of some kind when going out in public.  What some of us take for granted, others find to be burdensome.

The list of sensory irregularities I could describe is lengthy, but I mainly wanted to give you an idea of how many things our students deal with every day, just as part of the simple process of negotiating the physical world.  I often liken the experience of living with sensory challenges to the idea of going to work while having a bad cold.  One can get through it ok, but it takes a lot of concentration and doesn’t often feel very good.  It’s a lot harder to find the “zone” of motivation that we all rely on to plow through our responsibilities.