Many children with autism and other disabilities present a very different sensory and behavioral regulation , children who continually have objects in their hands, who put everything in their mouths, who have to be in continuous movement... they present other rhythms, another way of exploring the world. environment and are sensory seekers with high needs and great anxiety if they are not correctly satisfied.

First of all, note that sudden changes in dynamics are not recommended and will not be easy at all, so you have to be very patient to be able to help them and implement variations rather than changes effectively, from affection, respect and empathy. These changes may imply a destructuring of the child.

Second, we have a multitude of situations that behave in this way, each in their own way, and we also determine that these behaviors are sustained and unsustainable because they directly affect attention, learning, communication and, most importantly, His emotions .

Third and key to the problem and the intervention is… when does it not do it? What activities is it like we have hit “pause”? At what moments does everything seem to flow and self-regulate that sensoriality that 90% of the time keeps you distant, distant and absent? . It is extremely important to evaluate when this happens (or stops happening) to identify these moments to be able to intervene and delay them . We have to be very attentive and be able to analyze how in those moments this need is satisfied by another and enhance those moments so that they happen more often.

Perhaps this is the most important key to any intervention because all behavior , whether sensory or not, is fulfilling a function but it is never all the time . Normally I give a very graphic example when parents come asking for help when they have behavioral children who are difficult to “manage” and that is when I tell them that we are going to start “rewarding” them. As? Sometimes it is not about looking for when the behaviors are positive, which would be fantastic, but when they could be negative but are not, there is the prize! These behaviors, like many others, act the same as sensory ones. Many times we have the default habit of looking for that, the defect, the need, the lack, the next goal that, on many occasions, is unattainable because we look for it outside of the child.

This also happens with language and communication , when a child makes sounds, or says a syllable or simple word, we try to look for others, or even more words, and what we don't realize is that we encourage those sounds, those syllables, and those simple words. It is the key for more to emerge, they are the ingredients to build the future language.

So let's try to focus on what we want to repeat in our children : moments without self-stimulation, listening to those words or sounds again, seeing them calm again without behavior... and we will have a clear path for the evolution, whatever it may be, of each one of them. our little ones.

We hope you liked this article on sensory and behavioral regulation .