Give Now to Save America's Families!
Urgent Need: Will you become one of the monthly donors needed by March 31 to embolden Christian homes to stand firm against cultural forces that dishonor God’s plan for marriage and families? Your monthly gift will ensure we can continue to provide trustworthy, biblical guidance and support to struggling families on an ongoing basis.
Choose the monthly amount you'd like to give
$
FOTF-Logo-Stretch-Color.png
Search

Adoption and Sensory Processing Disorder

Can you help us understand why our 5-year-old son sometimes goes out of control for no obvious reason? He was adopted from a background of trauma and abuse, but we've done everything in our power to make him feel loved and secure. Still, he's developed serious behavioral problems. We're treating him for ADHD, but so far it hasn't helped.

It’s possible that your boy is suffering from Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). SPD can be defined as a practical inability to use information received through the senses so as to function smoothly and normally in everyday life. It has a physiological as well as a psychological basis, and is often caused by early childhood trauma. Though common among kids who come from “hard places,” SPD is frequently misunderstood and misdiagnosed – as a matter of fact, it can easily be mistaken for ADHD.

Sensation – touch, taste, sight, hearing, balance – and the discerning and skillful interpretation and use of sensation are not the same thing. We are born with the one; the other is honed and shaped as a child moves through the natural stages of growth and development. Babies fine-tune their perception of sensory information primarily within the context of nurturing experiences with a loving caregiver. As a nursing child snuggles close to her mother’s breast, looks up into her mother’s eyes, and sees her own expression mirrored in her mother’s face, her brain begins to form healthy neural and chemical connections that enable her to grasp the meaning of these sensory interactions with her environment. Early trauma of any kind can interrupt this natural developmental flow, causing sensory deficits which often surface later in the form of behavioral and learning difficulties.

SPD is not a single specific disorder. Instead, it’s an umbrella term that covers a variety of neurological disabilities, including the following sub-types:

Sensory Modulation Disorder

    • Sensory over-responsivity: the child is subject to sensory overload; simple sensations of sight, sound, and touch overwhelm and terrify him.

 

    • Sensory under-responsivity: the child is lethargic and seems unmoved by sensory stimulation.

 

  • Sensory seeking: the child craves more and more sensations of various kinds (spinning, hanging upside down, jumping, etc.).

Sensory Discrimination Disorder

  • The child has difficulty differentiating between stimuli, misgauges the importance of sensory messages, and thus has problems with body awareness and the interpretation of visual-spatial relations.

Sensory-Based Motor Disorder

    • Postural problems

 

  • Dyspraxia: the child displays an inability to plan and carry out simple tasks.

Children with SPD may experience difficulties with any or all of the following: touch, or the tactile sense; the vestibular sense, or balance and motion awareness; proprioception, or deep touch (“position” or “muscle sense”); the visual sense; and the auditory sense. In turn, these difficulties can sometimes trigger the kind of “out of control” behavior you described in your question.

 

If you’re unsure whether your son’s behavior can be explained in terms of SPD and its symptoms, feel free to call and discuss the details of your situation with a member of our Counseling department.

And for more information about parenting adopted children, you might consider a therapeutic parenting model developed by the late Dr. Karyn Purvis called TBRI (Trust Based Relational Intervention). We recommend you visit the webpage of TCU’s Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development, which has a free one-hour “Introduction to TBRI” online video designed to help parents understand their child’s brain development. You can find other resources through their online store.

 

Resources
If a title is currently unavailable through Focus on the Family, we encourage you to use another retailer.

The Adoption Journey (includes lists of books, broadcasts, articles and referrals)

The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family

Empowered to Connect: Created to Connect Study Guide

The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping With Sensory Processing Disorder

Fostering or Adopting Children From Difficult Backgrounds (resource list)

Referrals

TCU’s Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development

Empowered to Connect

Focus on the Family’s® Foster Care and Adoption Program: Wait No More®

The Out of Sync Child

Articles

Sensory Processing

SHARE:
You May Also Like