What do our Sensory Integration involve?
The processing, integration, and organization of incoming experiences from the environment and the body is referred to as sensory integration. Simply expressed, this refers to how we perceive, understand, and respond to (or ignore) information from our senses. Sensory integration is essential in all of our everyday activities, such as dressing, eating, moving about, socialising, learning, and working.
Sensory information is received through our senses, which include:
- Seeing (vision) (vision)
- Hearing (auditory system) (auditory system)
- Touch (tactile system) (tactile system)
- Taste (gustatory system) (gustatory system)
- Scent (olfactory system) (olfactory system)
- Proprioception (senses of bodily awareness and position) (senses of body awareness and position)
- Vestibular (awareness of movement, balance, and coordination) (awareness of movement, balance, and coordination)
- Interoception (our internal sensory system that informs us what is occurring inside our body, for example, hunger, needing the restroom, exhaustion, emotions, etc) (the internal sensory system that tells us what is happening inside our body, for example, hunger, needing the toilet, fatigue, emotions, etc)
Most of us acquire sensory integration while we are young as part of our natural development and via activities such as rolling, crawling, walking, and playing; for others, connector is less developed.