Our tactile system
Our tactile system is developed through touch as a primary method of communication and to establish social bonds. Through tactile responses, a child learns about feeding, dressing, language, movement, perception, basic concepts and handwriting. When skin is touched there are two types of responses:
- Discriminative – tells you where and what is being touched.
- Protective – is a response to danger and can trigger a flight or fight response.
The two responses balance one another and allow participation in daily activities through adaptive responses.
Hypersensitive
| Potential signs | Potential impact | Strategies to assist with learning |
|---|---|---|
| Dislike of brushing of hair or teeth. | The avoidance of messy play or being dirty | Consider ways of changing the task the child or young person need to do or environment they participate in. Remove labels from clothes. Allow CYP to choose their clothes from variety of fabrics. Allow variety of messy play activities to include wet and dry textures, consider options that do not require getting dirty, allow using tools for cooking and science activities. |
| Difficulty with clothing labels or textures. | Label free clothing or sewing soft fabrics over labels.
Allowing some flexibility around what to wear. | |
| Dislike of physical touching especially light touch. | Avoidance of public places | |
| Dislike of crowds. Struggling to line-up or sit in assembly | May respond with physical aggression to light touch | Proprioceptive activities can help inhibit the protective pathway and aid in reducing sensitivity. Let child stand at back of line so they don’t have unexpected touch from behind them, allow CYP to sit in assembly where there will be no one behind them |
| Dislike of wearing art aprons | Different fabric of art apron | |
| Dislike of wearing sports bibs | Different fabric of bib, |
Hyposensitive
| Potential signs | Potential impact | Strategies to assist with learning |
|---|---|---|
| Lack of reaction to painful experiences | Difficulty developing fine motor skills, self-help skills and play. Cannot remember how they got a bruise, do not move away from very hot object, instinctive responses appear slower. | Verbalise the risks and the presence of danger to support with cognitive cues to the reduced sensory cues. |
| Difficulty manipulating tools and toys | Practice activities that require grading force: Shoot hoops to target at different distance, practice lift disposable cup filled with water and not squeeze it. | |
| Difficulty to grade force when using tools or touching others. | Practice self-help skills and verbalise the steps to dressing independently or brushing teeth. | |
| Craving touch – touching others inappropriately. | Difficulties to create friendships due to excessive physical contact. | Provide options to touch objects – squeeze balls, soft area with bean bags to roll in, big teddies to hug. |
For both, it will be helpful to use proprioceptive strategies to improve tactile discrimination.