ADHD and sensory processing.
The data is now impossible to ignore.
This meta analysis in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reviewed 30 studies and more than 5,000 participants.
Across childhood and adulthood, individuals with ADHD showed significantly higher:
- sensory sensitivity
- sensory avoiding
- low sensory registration
- sensory seeking
Not small effects.
Large effect sizes.
Across multiple sensory domains.
And yet most clinical guidelines still do not routinely require sensory processing to be explored.
This is where our PEAR Model Framework™ matters. Translating research into everyday life support.
Person
If someone is struggling with attention, regulation, impulsivity or fatigue, we must ask:
What is their sensory experience of the world?
Are they overwhelmed?
Under registering?
Working twice as hard just to stay present?
Environment
Classrooms. Offices. Homes.
Lighting. Noise. Movement. Smell. Crowding.
If sensory thresholds differ, the same environment will not feel the same.
For one person it is manageable.
For another it is relentless.
Activity
Attention is not just cognitive.
It is embodied.
If low registration is high, more input may be needed to stay engaged.
If sensitivity is high, too much input will fragment participation.
Task design must respond to this.
Relational Response
How we interpret behaviour changes everything.
Is it non compliance?
Or is it a nervous system doing its best in a mismatched environment?
Our response can escalate stress.
Or it can co regulate and scaffold.
PEAR helps us move from labels to lived experience.
This meta analysis strengthens what many of us see every day in practice. Sensory processing differences are not peripheral in ADHD. They are central to participation.
If we want better outcomes, we must widen assessment beyond symptoms and ask about sensation.
Because attention does not happen in isolation.
It happens in bodies.
In spaces.
In relationships.
Read the full paper here: https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(25)00209-6/fulltext