SPD: Sensory Touch Issues & Challenges of Living with Tactile Defensiveness
Our sensory tactile, or touch, system responds to anything that may touch the skin. This includes light touch, discriminative touch, deep touch pressure, temperature, vibration, length of contact time, and pain
When a child is tactile defensive, they are very sensitive to touch, often finding certain kinds of touch painful, overwhelming, and often overloading their sensory system.
Some children are very sensitive to external stimulation, while others do not seem to notice sensory input that causes actual pain or injury.
Having a sensory processing system that is not functioning properly makes it difficult to interact and function on a daily basis. When the sensory information cannot be processed and managed effectively a child is unable to properly interpret and understand their surroundings, and even what they are feeling.
Every day, all day, we experience a variety of sensory input. Sensory stimulation may be from a touch, a breeze, the temperature of a room, how our clothing feels against our body, the sounds we hear, what we see or smell, or even how our bodies feel at any given time.
Examples of sensory touch sensitivity include:
Light touch sensitivity may include anything that touches the skin lightly, like a strand of hair, the breeze, humidity “wetness,” a loose thread in clothing, a feeling of vibration from “thumping” music, the “heat” felt from sitting too close, crumbs, a tickle, etc.
Discriminative tactile / touch sensitivity may include being oversensitive to things that a child touches. This may interfere with the development of fine motor skills, motor planning, and coordination.
This type of tactile defensiveness may be seen with a child who does not like, or who resists, “messy play,” where play items may be sticky, wet, rough, or squishy, or with dry play items like sand and craft materials.
Discriminative sensitivity can also impact meal time, with oral tactile issues with food textures and temperatures.
Deep tactile / touch pressure includes firmer touch, hugs, and squeezes.
A child may be overwhelmed and respond to deep tactile pressure that is soft or hard (as in a hug), loose or tight (as in clothing or shoe fit), or by the weight of pressure (blankets, pillows).
They may “tolerate” a brief encounter, at certain times of the day, or only deep pressure in certain specific areas of their body.
Tracking your child’s responses to what they react to, when this occurs, time they will tolerate, areas of the body they can accept sensory tactile stimulation to is an important step toward developing the plan with your service providers to support your child and to work to reduce the level of tactile defensiveness.
Children learn through their exploration of their world. Play is how they explore and learn and grow. Through play a child uses all of their senses into order to explore and learn – they use touch, taste, smell, proprioceptive/movement, vision, body awareness, and so on while they play and interact.
Having a variety of sensory input, sensory experience, and sensory sensation, helps to promote the development and maturation of a child’s sensory systems. A child’s sensory overload or tactile defensiveness may impact a child’s response and learning opportunities in everyday basic and routine situations.
When there is a sensory integration processing deficit, normal development of play and exploratory skills are significantly impacted. For those children, use of sensory boxes and other organized, planned, sensory integration activities can provide specific stimulation and input under more focused conditions that can help reduce episodes of tactile defensiveness.
This book, written by an Occupational Therapist, will cover:
Introduction toSPD: Sensory Touch Issues & Challenges of Living With Tactile Defensiveness
Author information
Typical Responses with SPD / Sensory Tactile Issues
Sensory Touch and Tactile Defensiveness
Tracking Responses
Common Signs and Symptoms of Tactile Defensiveness
OT Activities, Ideas, and Suggestions for Reducing Impact of Tactile Defensiveness
Working to Reduce Tactile Defensiveness: Activities, Ideas, & Suggestions
Judy Benz Duncan has been an Occupational Therapist for over thirty years. She has worked with children from infants to teenagers in numerous settings that included early intervention, pre-school programs, grade school, home health, developmental training centers, and sensory integration clinics.
Judy developed the foundation for designing therapeutic activities and tasks using interactive play and creative imagination to engage the children at a level they could easily relate to while working toward the achievement of their Occupational Therapy program’s functional goals and treatment plan
Judy attended the University of Florida, University of Kansas, and the University of Tennessee. She received New York State approval as a Supplemental Evaluator for OT with early intervention and pre-school students, and has helped develop and start an OT program for families and children in New York. Judy continues to stay up-to-date in the clinical field through mentoring other OT students and new graduates.
She continues to contribute to children, families and professionals everywhere through her professional writing endeavors which include writing books and manuals, managing the therapeutic website, TheraPlay4Kids.com, writing OT blogs and topic-specific articles, working on "interactive story play" book series, writing bi-weekly professional blogs for a pediatric orthopedic surgeon group, a psychiatrist, and an attorney at law. She continues to be an active mentor of new OT graduates, as well as OT students.
