by Ruth Golomb, LCPC, and Suzanne Mouton-Odum, PhD
Imagine you’re driving in your car and hear a loud siren behind you. You recognize immediately that it’s an emergency vehicle trying to get through traffic, so you pull over to the side of the road to let it pass.
This sequence may seem simple and automatic, but it’s your nervous system at work. You receive sensory information (hearing the siren), interpret it (understanding an emergency vehicle needs to pass), and respond with an appropriate action (moving out of the way).
But what happens when someone’s nervous system processes that information differently? Perhaps they do not perceive the sound in the same way others do. They might experience it like amplified nails on a chalkboard, or as so loud it hurts their ears intensely. Perhaps they become overwhelmed and freeze rather than move their car, interfering with the vehicle’s ability to proceed.
On the outside, this might look like a lack of cooperation. But it may actually be due to differences in how their nervous system receives, interprets, and responds to sensory input.
Understanding Nervous System Differences
Differences in sensory processing can be at the root of challenges mental and behavioral health professionals see all the time, especially when working with children. What looks on the surface like anxiety, OCD, oppositional defiance might be an issue of underlying dysregulation.
Without recognizing this link, well-meaning therapists, parents, and teachers often misunderstand, misdiagnose, or inappropriately treat challenging behaviors. This can be confusing and frustrating for everyone involved—and ultimately misses the heart of the problem.
Understanding and assessing the nervous system in the context of therapy can provide valuable insight into many behaviors that serve to regulate. For example, one person may be soothed by silence, soft blankets, and the smell of lavender while another may prefer to relax with a long run followed by a cool shower. Neither is right nor wrong, but they look very different.
When we learn how our unique nervous systems function (that is, what is regulating and what is dysregulating to us), we can identify ways to support, accommodate, and regulate more effectively.
The Sensory Systems That Influence Behavior
Most people are familiar with the five traditional senses—taste, sight, hearing, touch, and smell. However, there are additional internal sensory systems that play an equally important role in daily functioning.
Proprioception helps us understand where our bodies are in space, allowing us to stand an appropriate distance from others or move through a crowded hallway without bumping into people.
Interoception provides information about internal bodily states, such as hunger, thirst, heart rate, and the need to use the bathroom.
The vestibular system helps us maintain balance, coordinate movement, and understand motion.
All of these sensory systems function uniquely in a given individual and influence thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
When the nervous system is not regulating sensory information effectively, a person may respond in ways that are perplexing to others. For example, a person may be highly sensitive to certain sounds, such as the crunching of food or the noise of a hand dryer in a public restroom, while another may find certain textures, such as clothing tags or wool fabrics, intensely uncomfortable or downright offensive.
These experiences can trigger strong emotional and behavioral responses, including anger, fear, crying, screaming, fleeing a situation, or refusing to wear particular clothing or go to certain places.
Alternatively, a person may love the sensation of touching smooth skin and develop skin picking behavior to achieve the desired smoothness, causing a therapist to misunderstand the behavior as self-harm or a bad habit.
To an observer, these reactions may look like defiance, disobedience, or anxiety. However, understanding the whole person, including their nervous system, allows us to understand that the child is either communicating genuine discomfort or is simply attempting to regulate their nervous system.
What appears to be a behavioral problem may actually be the nervous system responding to negative stimuli or moving toward what they experience as a positive, soothing experience.
Helping Families Develop Compassion and Respond to Dysregulation
When parents and caregivers understand how a child’s nervous system functions, they can view these reactions through a different lens, one that is functional. They can gain a compassionate framework for understanding behaviors that may otherwise seem confusing or defiant and help children develop language to describe their experiences.
This understanding often reduces shame for the child and frustration for parents. It can increase empathy and allows families to work together more effectively to support the child.
This is why we developed a therapeutic approach that helps children, families, and mental health professionals better understand behaviors linked to sensory dysregulation, as well providing a pathway toward successful behavior change.
Viewing behavior as functional and in the service of the nervous system allows us to work with a person’s nervous system to help them build skills to address what the behavior is attempting to regulate in a more adaptive way.
This approach encourages children to gradually engage with uncomfortable or challenging experiences rather than avoid them, while at the same time incorporating more appropriate self-regulatory skills. As children develop these skills, they gain greater confidence in their ability to navigate difficult situations, while parents feel more empowered to support their child and manage challenges effectively.