Helping your child with their sensitivities

Common sensory concerns and strategies

Some children and young people will experience their senses much stronger or weaker than other people. This can affect their day-to-day life. They may not want to take part in everyday activities. There are various strategies that can be used to help your child or young person.

• Balance, body awareness and movement

  Some children and young people have difficulties around movement and their body awareness.

  This can look like:

  Constantly on the move or seemingly powered by a motor. You can help your child by giving them lots of breaks. They can play and run around during the breaks. Try to reduce the amount of time doing sitting down activities. 

  Climbing too much. You can give your child or young person lots of opportunities to play on big play equipment. This could be at your local park or in a soft play area. You can also encourage them to play running and catching games.

  No sense of danger when climbing. Try encourage them to climb on play equipment. This will help keep them safe. Talk to your child and reinforce where they can climb and where they cannot climb. 

  Seeking rocking motions. If your child is younger, you can play rocking games like row-your-boat or the roly-poly song. If your child is older, they can use a gym ball or yoga ball to rock on. Gym balls or yoga balls can be used for chairs, however the table will need to be the correct height for this. 

  Spins around too much. You can play lots of games where spinning is appropriate such as ring-a-roses or go to play areas with spinning equipment like roundabouts. You can also read books like involve a lot of swirling or spinning actions like Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.

  Difficulties moving around obstacles and objects. You can play games that involve moving around obstacles. Try making the obstacles and objects more visible. This can be done by putting visual markers or bright colours on the obstacles and objects.

  Difficulties with hand skills. Give them lots of opportunities to play with their hands. You can give them toys that focus on hand skills like squishy balls or popper toys. Read more about hand skills.

• Sight

  Some children and young people can have hypersensitive or hyposensitive sight. This means that they may be overly sensitive or under sensitive to what they can see.

  This can look like:

  Holding objects close to their eyes. You may want to have your child or young person's eyes tested to see if they need glasses. 

  Being fascinated by small patterns or threads on carpets, they may also pull threads. Discourage your child or young person pulling threads by placing a play mat or cloth over the carpet. This can help them focus on tasks. 

  Stares at fluorescent lighting. Create an environment, designated area or 'den' that your child finds relaxing without fluorescent lighting.

  Turns off lights or avoids looking at print in books. Create a environment, designated area or 'den' that meets your child's sensory needs. They may find their surroundings overwhelming and over-stimulating. You can try increasing natural colours and natural lighting in the room. If possible, try dimming artificial lights. 

  Being excited by spinning toys. You can try to slowly reduce the amount of spinning and redirect their focus onto other functions of the toy like rolling. You can also use spinning into other play activities. 

  Being excited by toys with flashing lights. Use flashing light toys as a reward or a motivator for short periods of time. If your child or young person has a sensory bag, you can add a toy with flashing lights into the bag. 

• Smell

  Some children and young people can have a hypersensitive or hyposensitive sense of smell.

  This can look like:

  Smell toys before playing with them. Show your child or young person using different ways to identify toys like using their hands to feel their texture. You can use more scented items during play such as scratch and sniff books. 

  Puts objects up their nose. This could be from your child not understanding the right distance to smell the objects. Show them an appropriate distance to hold objects when smelling them. You can also put different smells onto a large pieces of fabric to let them sniff.

• Taste

  Some children and young people can are hypersensitive or hyposensitive to tastes or feeling things with their mouths.

  This can look like:

  Chews or mouths everything. This could be a stage of development where children explore their environment using their mouth. You can provide your child with a range of toys and objects with different textures for your child to play with using their hands. 

  Licks people and objects. Encourage your child to try identifying people and objects in different ways. This could be by seeing  or touching a person or object. 

  Bites people for seemingly no reason. Your child may be overwhelmed and overloaded. Make sure when they are in this state, approach them from the front and do not touch your child. You can give them a rubber ring or chewable jewellery. Encourage them to bite the ring or chewable jewellery when they want to bite. 

  Refuses to sit at a table to eat. The best way to show children how to behave is by showing them. As the adult, model sitting at the table with your child to eat. Start by reducing the amount of time your child needs to sit at the table. After a short time of sitting, allow your child to move away to do their favourite activity. You can slowly increase the amount of time they are sitting at the table.

  Only eats specific foods. Some children and young people are very sensitive to tastes and textures with food. Do some messy play with your child involving food such as wet spaghetti and porridge oats. Try offering your child very small pieces of new foods in between eating their favourite foods. Reward any positive approach to food like smelling, touching or holding food in their mouth. Read more about fussy and selective eating.

  Eats things that are not food (also known as pica). Stop your child whenever you notice them eating an item that is not food. Swap the non-food item with food or chewable jewellery. Do this each time they put an inedible or non-food item in their mouth. Read more about pica.

• Sound

  Some children and young people can be hypersensitive or hyposensitive to sound. This means that they may be overly sensitive or under sensitive to what they can hear.

  This can look like:

  Distressed by loud or sudden noises. Help your child to identify the noise by naming it. You can do this by saying what the sound is and showing them where it came from like "Wow, it's the balloon. Look!" Encourage your child to play with the object or to watch others playing with it. You can make it into a game like blowing up the balloon and letting it go or blowing up the balloon and making small squeaky bursts of air. 

  Distressed by everyday noises like a hand dryer. Certain noises can be upsetting to sensitive children and young people. You can help them by encouraging them to stay in the room but at a distance from the noise. They should still be able to see the source of the noise but feel protected from it. Point out the object making the noise to ease your child's anxiety about the noise. Eventually you can encourage your child or young person to move near the object making the noise, touch the object and turn it on. 

  Places their hands over other people's mouths when they talk or sing. Help your child by preparing them for the sound. This can be explaining a group are going to sing. If possible, try to make sure only one adult is talking when talking to your child. Speak in short simple sentences using a soft and calm voice. 

  Overly excited by repetitive sounds. Try to limit access to repetitive sounds before it over stimulates and over excites your child. You an use a sand timer to show them when the activity or sound is going to finish.

  Doesn't respond when spoken to. Make sure that your child does not have a hearing difficulty. Speak to your GP or health visitor. Help your child to pay attention to you by using their name at the start of any conversation or instruction. Make sure your make your voice sound interesting when talking to them, this will help them pay attention. If you are teaching your child or young person, try to make them a distraction free area. You can also work on naming things using photographs and labelling objects to help them recognise the words.

• Touch

  Some children and young people can be overly sensitive or under sensitive to what they can touch and feel.

  This can look like:

  Finds a nappy change upsetting and distressing. Make sure that the mat is not cold. You can place a towel under your child when changing their nappy. Figure out if your child needs a firm or light touch when changing their nappy. This can change from child to child. Use quick smooth movements when changing their nappy. You can also use a sing song or have a toy to help distract them.

  Avoids messy play. During messy play, try to use familiar toys like a car in a paint tray. You can also let your child play with materials using long handled tools, once they are comfortable with this you can move onto short handled tools. You can also let your child play with messy materials in zip seal bags. Read more about messy play.  

  Takes off clothing. Some children are very sensitive to how their clothing feels. They may be sensitive to tags and seams in their clothing and socks. It can be helpful to stick with familiar clothing that your child accepts, then slowly introduce new clothes for short periods of time. Read about strategies for dressing sensitive children.

  Avoids holding hands with adults and other children or young people. Let your child watch from a distance. Do not pressure them into holding your hand. See if they will let you hold onto their sleeve. You can slowly introduce your child to a range of touch experiences. Messy play may be beneficial if they are willing to take part. Read more about messy play.

  Craves rough and tumble play. Bring more gentle play into playtime. You can also include a wind-down period during play. Slowly increase the amount of time you are winding down.

  Doesn't show distress or upset when hurt. Try to show your child the different types of touch such as light touch or firm touch. This can help them learn to spot the different sensations.

  Holds people lightly or leans on others. Try to redirect their energy into using pressure toys like squeezy balls or pressing down onto a beach ball. Playing clapping games and feely bag games. You can also give them firm handshakes or high-fives throughout the day.