#adhd sensory processing

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) disrupts how the central nervous system takes in, organizes, and uses the messages that we get through our body’s receptors for everyday functioning. We take in sensory information through our eyes, ears, muscles, joints, skin and inner ears, and we use those sensations – we integrate them, modulate them, analyze them and interpret them for immediate and appropriate everyday functioning.

For example, you hear a truck rumbling down the road as you’re standing poised to cross the street, and that rumbling of the truck tells you, “Jump back.” You don’t think about it, you just react instinctively, if all is going well. But sometimes with SPD, that processing falters. For people with SPD, sensory stimuli from our own bodies and from our environment can cause signals to misfire — and problems in movement, emotions, relationships, tension and adaptations to the signals that we’re constantly receiving.

[...]

Temple Grandin says that all people on the autism spectrum have SPD and sensory challenges.

ADHD and SPD have fidgetiness and inattention in common. The big difference: If you take away the sensory overload of an itchy tag or a humming florescent bulb, the behavior changes for a person with SPD. For a person with ADHD, it does not.