Best Practice

The rising tide of sensory troubles: Explosive behaviours

In a three-part series, inclusion specialist Joanna Grace addresses the sensory challenges that many pupils face. In part two, she considers explosive sensory behaviours – and how not to react

Our senses are our primary source of information about the world, nothing trumps the authority of the information we get from them. Even if our thinking brain tells us that something is not real, our senses take the upper hand.

This is the second in a series of three sensory articles. In article one I evaluated the reality of sensory processing difficulties for our pupils. Suffice to say that for a variety of reasons we now have within our classrooms children who process sensory information in a way different to the norm.

Recently I experienced a perfect example of the trumping of sensory experiences over cognition for myself. I am a sensory engagement specialist, everything I do is focused on better understanding and engaging the senses. I was at a party and had the opportunity to try a virtual reality headset. Inside the virtual world dinosaurs were grazing in a wilderness.

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