Taking In The World Through Our Sensory System

Taking In The World Through Our Sensory System, Jade Studee

Our sensory systems work together to interpret the world around us and influence our experience of both the environment and our body. Children learn and explore through taking in the world around them through their senses.

Did you know we have EIGHT senses? Here’s an overview of each one:

1. Visual- Our sight, or what we see through our eyes. Our eyes take in information through light and create images that our brain interprets what we are looking at.

2. Tactile- What we feel through our skin by touching or being touched. Tactile input includes pressure, texture, temperature, and pain. 

3. Auditory- What we hear through our ears, including the volume, pitch, and timbre. Auditory input provides information about where a noise is coming from, whether that noise is background noise or needs attending to.

4. Gustatory (Taste)- Our sense of taste is determined through receptors in our mouth, tongue, and throat. Taste includes food and drink textures, temperatures, and flavors of sweet, salty, sour, umami, and bitter.

5. Olfactory (Smell)- What we smell through receptors in our nose interpreting odors around us. Sense of smell is strongly linked to emotion and memory.

6. Vestibular- Our vestibular sense gives us our sense of balance, brings awareness of where our body is in space, stabilizes our vision, and helps regulate our posture and coordinate body movements. Receptors in the ear are stimulated through any change in our head’s position, direction, and movement. 

7. Proprioception- Proprioception is our sense of where our body is in space in relation to movement, force, and pressure. Receptors in our muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints interpret pressure and force to create our sense of movement. 

8. Interoception- Our body’s internal sense of the physiological state of the body. Interoceptors throughout the body’s internal organs detect changes in our internal state and influence our sense of well-being. Interoception is responsible for our body’s sense of hunger, thirst, temperature, heart-rate, breathing, tension, nausea, tiredness, needing to use the bathroom, and more.

Sensory Processing and Self-Regulation

Because our senses work together to influence our sense of self within the world around us, how our body interprets sensory input can significantly impact how we act within the environment. All children have some variability in their response to sensory input. In a lot of situations, these preferences are just that- preferences! Think about which fruit is your favorite or which is your least, or whether you like to sleep in the quiet or with some white noise in the background. These preferences are the result of the way your sensory system interprets the input from your senses.

The way our nervous system takes in sensory input, interprets various senses’ input together, and uses that information to influence action, movement, social engagement, adaptive behavior, and development is referred to as sensory integration, now called Ayres Sensory Integration®. This theory specifically emphasizes the integration of tactile, vestibular, and proprioceptive input in forming the foundation for action and adaptive behavior. This translation of sensory input into action is called praxis. 

Praxis includes:

1) ideation - conceptualization of action to take

2) motor planning - physically coordinating the movement in response to the environment

3) execution - following through on taking the action

In addition to poor praxis, poor sensory modulation, or how our bodies register and respond to sensory input, can result in a much stronger response (hyperreactive) or a much lower response (hyporeactive) than is typical. In both difficulty with sensory modulation and poor praxis, how the sensory input is processed often impacts a child’s self-regulation and their engagement in daily routines, activities, play, social interactions, or movement.

Sensory Input and Play

Children explore and learn about the world around them, their bodies, and the interaction between their actions and the world through receiving sensory input while engaging with the world. The primary way children learn this is through play, as play provides an opportunity for children to explore through immersive sensory experiences. Set the grounds for child-led play by venturing to a nearby natural area, bringing out the paints, or heading to the park. See if you can capture what your child may be taking in through each of their eight senses! 
In addition to sensory input coming from play, the types of play that children independently engage in is also influenced by that aspects of that child’s sensory processing. One study found that sensory factors including body awareness, balance, touch, and social participation were related to the quality of pretend play the child engaged in (Roberts et al, 2-28).

Have questions? 

Our occupational therapist, Jade, is available if you have questions or concerns about your child’s sensory processing or play skills.

Sources:

Bundy, A. C., Shia, S., Qi, L., & Miller, L. J. (2007). How does sensory processing dysfunction affect play? American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 61, 201–208.

Lane SJ, Mailloux Z, Schoen S, Bundy A, May-Benson TA, Parham LD, Smith Roley S, Schaaf RC. Neural Foundations of Ayres Sensory Integration®. Brain Sci. 2019 Jun 28;9(7):153. doi: 10.3390/brainsci9070153. PMID: 31261689; PMCID: PMC6680650 .https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6680650/.

Roberts, Tara, Karen Stagnitti, Ted Brown, Anoo Bhopti; Relationship Between Sensory Processing and Pretend Play in Typically Developing Children. Am J Occup Ther January/February 2018, Vol. 72(1), 7201195050p1–7201195050p8. doi: https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2018.027623

“Your 8 Senses.” Star Institute, March 2025, https://sensoryhealth.org/basic/your-8-senses#f4.