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Tactile Sensitivity

Tactile Defensiveness and Other Problems
One of the most well-known sensory problems is tactile defensiveness, a condition in which all or some types of touch are perceived as noxious and dangerous. Like all sensory issues, tactile defensiveness can run from mild to severe. Consider Lia, a ten-month-old girl adopted from China whom Lindsey worked with. At the orphanage, she had been swaddled from head-to-toe in a blanket virtually twenty-four hours a day. While she was a cuddly baby who quickly attached to her adoring adoptive parents, Lia became extremely upset when anyone touched her hands and feet, avoided holding her bottle, protested when barefoot, would not play with textured toys, and touched things only with the index finger of one hand. As a result of her tactile oversensitivity, her fine motor and gross motor skills were significantly delayed. A more extreme – and less common – example of tactile defensiveness is a child who refuses to be held and is so unable to accept the sensation of food in his mouth and throat that he must be fed through a tube.

A child may also be tactile undersensitive. When Nancy's son, Cole, didn't flinch and even giggled when vaccinated, it was a sign of tactile undersensitivity. When he learned to walk, he often skinned his knees at the playground, got up, and kept moving, even as his knees were bleeding. He just didn't perceive the sensation as painful.

A tactile undersensitive child needs a lot of input to get the touch information he needs and often seeks it out on his own, often in unsafe ways. A tactile defensive child needs to be desensitized so he can more readily accept touch experiences. This can be tricky, because as a parent, you want to accommodate your child by helping him to avoid threatening experiences to make life easier and at the same time, build up his tolerance for inevitable unpleasant experiences as well.

Adapting to Touch
Another dimension of touch is how rapidly we adapt to tactile changes. Most of us quickly get used to the feeling of light touch or deep pressure, while we take longer to adapt to sensations of pain or change in temperature and so are more likely to be aware of them. For instance, you probably don't feel your socks soon after you put them on. A child with tactile issues may continue to be aware of his socks for hours afterward. His body perceives his socks as a new sensory event that is starting over and over again. When you get off an airplane in Florida, you may feel uncomfortable for several hours even if you're wearing warm-weather clothes because you're still used to colder weather. But your child may complain for your entire vacation that he is unbearably hot even though he's wearing shorts and a tank top.

It can be difficult to judge when you're pushing too hard to help your child with tactile issues. For instance, some parents, and some parenting experts, believe tickling a child is always wrong, hurtful, or overstimulating. Interestingly, tickling sensations travel mostly along the protective touch tract, which makes sense if you imagine that the tickling feeling could be a scorpion traveling up your leg! For the tactile defensive child, tickling can be intolerable. Yet many parents of kids with SI dysfunction have noticed that their undersensitive and even oversensitive children adore tickling, ask for it, and even are calmed by it. You need to be the judge of whether tickling should be a part of your plan for tactile desensitization. You may need some guidance to figure out which techniques help your tactile sensitive child – and how to gauge the amount of tactile input your child can safely tolerate.

Common Signs of Tactile Sensitivity
While many children show these signs, consider whether your child shows them more often and more dramatically than other children do. Does your child...

• become upset – or not notice – when his hands, face, or clothing are messy with substances such as paint, glue, food, and sand?

• become anxious – or crave – walking barefoot on surfaces such as grass, sand, carpet, or linoleum (or even walk on his toes to minimize skin contact)?

• fuss excessively when it's time to get dressed, complaining that clothing is uncomfortable?

• avoid being touched, especially unexpectedly or by unfamiliar people – or constantly seek out physical contact?

• feel pain more or less intensely than others?

• strongly dislike grooming activities such as brushing teeth, having hair washed, or nails cut?