What Interoception is
Interoception is the sense of knowing what is going on inside our bodies. It includes things such as feeling hunger, thirst, temperature, pain, needing the toilet and noticing how our emotions feel.
Hypersensitive
| Potential signs | Potential impact | Strategies to assist with learning |
|---|---|---|
| The sensation of hunger, thirst or bathroom needs can cause them to be extremely anxious. The slightest change in temperature or even hearing their own heartbeat can be extremely distracting. | They may have trouble maintaining focus on a task because they are distracted by what is going on in their body | Activities which give our body proprioceptive sensation or activities which help us to connect our physical feelings within our bodies to our emotions can be particularly helpful to start to improve interoception awareness |
Hyposensitive
| Potential signs | Potential impact | Strategies to assist with learning |
|---|---|---|
| The child often needs a large amount of input to recognise the type of sensory information their brain is receiving. This means they may not realise the need to use the bathroom, or that they are hungry until they are completely starving. They may not realise they are in pain, or the sensation of pain feels completely different to them, like a tickle. | Children who are hyposensitive to interoception may not feed when they need to go to the bathroom, resulting in accidents. They may never feel full after a meal, or they may never feel hungry. They may not respond to pain in the same way as would be expected. | Mindfulness and mediation encourage children to be more aware of what is going on inside their bodies. |
| Yoga focuses on listening to your body and providing good vestibular and proprioceptive input, it is helpful for developing interoception. | ||
| Breathing techniques and exercises are helpful for calming, as well as paying attention to what is going on inside our bodies. | ||
| Alerting activities are a great way to talk about heart rate and breathing rate. How do you feel after exercising? Is your heart racing? How do your muscles feel? Are you breathing hard and fast or slow and steady? | ||
| Cues or visual prompts that encourage children to identify body functions and feelings including using Social Stories can be useful. |
