What Is Sensory Processing Disorder?

Although I have never been formally diagnosed, I appear to have Sensory Processing Disorder, sometimes called Sensory Integration Dysfunction or just SPD.

This is a condition where your brain does not react appropriately to the signals received by your senses. These inappropriate reactions might be hyper (i.e. over-reactive) or hypo (under-reactive) – i.e. it can go either way.

SPD is not very well understood (yet), so my hope is that this article may assist you in determining whether you or your children might have this condition.

Common Symptoms

There are many common symptoms of SPD, including the following:

• Being easily distracted
• Difficulty learning new things
• High tolerance for pain
• Hyper-acute hearing
• Hypersensitive hearing
• Impaired language development
• Issues with food
• No sense of boundaries
• Overly aggressive responses to everyday stimuli
• Poor motor coordination
• Touch aversion

Not all SPD sufferers have all of the above, and some have other problems not listed.

For example:

• I cannot bear prolonged pressure on any part of my body, however light that pressure may be. It begins with discomfort but quickly turns to pain. And it mainly, but not exclusively, affects my feet. This makes it difficult for me to wear socks, or even have a sheet or blanket covering them in bed, which is an issue during winter.
• I have hypersensitive hearing, which is sometimes referred to as misophonia. There are certain sounds that I simply cannot bear. They give me headaches and can even make me feel nauseated. One such noise is the sound of people or animals crunching. So while I love my three dogs, it’s extremely disquieting when they’re eating.
• I have always been on the clumsy side, as my father frequently told me. The fact I ever managed to become somewhat competent as a magician and learned to do basic 3-ball juggling was a constant surprise to both him and me.
• I am easily distracted and had always assumed this was a sign of ADD or ADHD, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I have both?
• I am not keen on being touched, particularly by strangers. On the other hand, I rarely touch others, other than people I care about a lot (e.g. my late wife, my dogs). This may, however, because I find it rude.
• And I definitely have problems with learning. I had always thought this was the result of memory issues, but maybe not. It’s not that I’m unintelligent (I think), and my vocabulary is probably on the high side of average (at least, that’s what Grammarly tells me). But I can read and re-read passages in articles and books and the information still doesn’t seem to sink in – even though I think I understand it at the time.
• There are many foods I cannot eat without retching. In most cases, it’s not that I dislike the taste – it’s the texture of the food that does it. For me (since others have different issues), I cannot abide foods that are somewhere between firm and liquid – the ones that are in that middle ground of gooey and gungy. Examples include porridge or oatmeal, and mayonnaise, but there are many others.

Diagnosis

This is tricky because, like autism, it’s behavioural in nature. In other words, there are no physical tests (e.g. blood work-ups) that will reveal somebody suffers from SPD.

It’s also not listed in the latest edition of the DSM, which I find comforting in a way because it doesn’t feel like a mental disorder in the way that depression is, even though it may be a problem with how the brain works.

Your average family doctor is unlikely to recognize it, especially as the symptoms vary from person to person.

There are even those who claim it’s not even a real condition. And yet for me, and many other people I know of, it’s very real. For some, it seriously affects their day-to-day lives.

What Causes SPD?

The short answer is that nobody really knows for certain.

However, some think SPD has a genetic basis. If this is the case, then I’m not aware of anybody else in my family complaining about having the sort of symptoms I’ve described. (They would not have called it SPD because this term is relatively new.)

It has also been theorized to be related to prenatal alcohol or drug exposure.

This makes more sense, in my case. Both of my parents smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol. In the case of my mother, she did both even during pregnancy. Remember, back in the late 1950s, it was not commonly believed that either of those activities could cause harm. Today, it’s widely acknowledged that both active and passive smoking can cause a variety of health problems (e.g., lung cancer). However, many people still don’t realize that alcohol is known to be a Class I carcinogen.

My mother had long been a drinker, but apparently during pregnancy, the only alcohol she could stomach was Advocaat (aka eggnog). Coincidentally, until I stopped drinking alcohol in 2005, that was one of the few drinks I had never liked. Maybe it was the fact I OD’ed on it in the womb, or maybe it’s an SPD thing because the texture is sort of thick and gloopy.

A third hypothesis suggests early childhood trauma, neglect, or a lack of stimulation during early childhood might cause SPD. As I have written about elsewhere, I was never encouraged to be creative – everything was about facts and figures and reading, but never drawing or music, for example.

I have wondered before whether that lack of creative stimulation is what caused my aphantasia. I have yet to see any formal studies connecting these two conditions, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they discovered they are related.

On the other hand, I do not recall any early trauma (but maybe I wouldn’t if my brain has tried to suppress such memories) and I certainly didn’t feel neglected.

Can SPD Be Treated?

There are a few things people have tried with varying degrees of success, but there is no slam dunk.

And it also depends on whether the person is hyposensitive or hypersensitive.

For those who over-react (i.e. the hypersensitive ones), then these techniques can help, but they are more to do with managing symptoms than curing the underlying problem:

• Avoiding any products that contain toxic ingredients. This might mean choosing to eat organic / non-GMO food, for example. Also, be aware that many household cleaning products, skin care and make-up products, and many pharmaceutical products contain petroleum-derived ingredients.
• Avoiding products with strong scents (e.g., air fresheners, aftershaves, perfumes, soaps).
• Dimming the lighting and/or wearing sunglasses to help block out the glare from fluorescent lights.
• Limiting food options to avoid personal aversions (e.g., excessively cold or hot, intensely spicy).
• Skin brushing, which is a technique where a soft-bristled brush is used on the skin to help a person tolerate touch. (There are other health benefits to this practice too.)
• Wearing clothing that avoids personal sensitivities (e.g., tight waistbands, scratchy fabric, seams, tags).
• Wearing ear plugs or headphones in noisy environments.

And for those who under-react, then these techniques might help:

• Creative activities.
• Furniture arrangements that reduce the chances of bumping into sharp or hard surfaces.
• Opportunities for rocking, swinging, and other sensory-stimulating activities.
• Sensory-stimulating toys (e.g. safe chewies and fidget items).
• Strong-tasting and/or textured foods, including cold and hot beverages.

The above are only intended to give you a few ideas because each individual experiences different symptoms and so will need different solutions.

What About Autism?

At first glance, it appears as though SPD and autism may be related. For example, many autistic children also have issues with touch, and, of course, learning disabilities are one of the defining aspects of autism.

However, brain scans have revealed that different parts of the brain are affected for those with autism and those with SPD. That would suggest there are different mechanisms at work, which happen to sometimes cause similar effects.

Does SPD Go Away?

It does seem to be increasingly common in children, as are many other chronic health issues (e.g. allergies, asthma), and while some people find SPD to be less of an issue as they grow older, that’s not always the case.

I think mine got worse during my 30s through 50s, and it’s only recently that it’s begun to become less severe. This may be because I am trying to ensure I have enough magnesium in my diet, but this may, of course, be mere coincidence. Having said that, magnesium is required by hundreds of biochemical reactions in the body, and it’s recognized that maybe as many as half of all Americans are deficient in this macromineral.

However, it was during my 30s through late 40s that I experienced severe stress, chronic depression, and even suicidal thoughts, so that may have been a factor in making my SPD worse than at other times.

Conclusion

Whereas there are, I think, some benefits to aphantasia, I am not sure I see many, if any, in Sensory Processing Disorder.

It restricts the foods I can eat, including some I’d like to try but can’t. It makes it uncomfortable, even painful, to sit, stand, or lie still for anything more than a few minutes at a time. It can cause physical issues such as headaches and nausea.

And other sufferers report a greater variety of problems, some of which are more severe than mine.

My hope is that this article may have helped you connect a few dots and discover that seemingly unrelated symptoms might have a common thread. As I said, there is no known cure for SPD, but you may at least be able to start trying to deal with whatever symptoms you face.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Skin Brush
2. Skin Brushing