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The disorder can be profoundly disruptive on every level. Living in a state of perpetual flight, fight, or freeze in reaction to stimuli – or in constant fear of those reactions’ onset – takes a toll on SPD children and their parents alike. And Elias, at age 2, would hold his breath and sit at the bottom of the pool – the silence and water pressure his only solace. This makes his mom, Judy, who is a hugger, think twice before reflexively going in for a hug. “It physically hurts when people hug me,” he says. He would rather be kicked in his hapkido martial arts class than receive a friendly hug. “As soon as these kids can move themselves, they will run screaming from the room when these stimuli reach their world,” says Elysa Marco, MD ’00, a cognitive and behavioral pediatric neurologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco and a member of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. Whether seen, heard, or felt, what all these sensory inputs have in common is their sudden onset and unpredictability.įor an SPD kid, these experiences are beyond a nails-on-a-chalkboard annoyance. Visual provocations that can set kids off include IMAX movies, crowded stadiums, parking lots, even bikes and tents hanging from the ceiling of a camping store. Auditory offenses include coffee grinders, the birthday song – surprise or not – and noisy, erratically moving toys. Tactile triggers that torment kids with SPD include tags in shirts, wooly sweaters, socks, or an accidental shoulder brush during preschool circle time. Photo: Gabriela Hasbun Beyond Nails-On-A-ChalkboardĮlias, Xander, and Cal all experience extreme reactivity to tactile, auditory, or visual stimulation – a condition known as sensory processing disorder (SPD). The treatment framework for SPD developed by UCSF neurologist Elysa Marco is helping parents control their children’s arousal levels. When Cal (with his mom, Jennifer) first moved to the suburbs from the city, “he was in sensory overload,” she says.
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“He suddenly had all this space and stimulation. “We got here and Cal was always running away from me,” recalls Jennifer. Cal was 2 when they moved here from a small, contained apartment. Rooftops, forests, and the San Francisco Bay spool out for miles.
#Sensory issues windows#
His mother, Jennifer, points to the floor-to-ceiling windows in her hilltop living room. Xander, while growing up in the perpetual sensory assault of Manhattan, had to get off the train any time someone with a guitar entered his subway car to play for small change.Ĭal had a more enigmatic reaction to stimuli. The outburst shot like a bolt of electricity through Elias.
#Sensory issues full#
Cindy was cradling her 9-month-old son, Elias, against her chest when she and a room full of family simultaneously yelled “Surprise!” to an unsuspecting aunt on her birthday.
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