Category: dyslexia

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Research for Practice: Sensory Integration and Dyslexia.

Ayres’ published her research findings, making a case for emerging patterns of sensory integration dysfunction including;   

  • developmental dyspraxia – this pattern linking motor planning difficulties with deficits in tactile perception
  • difficulties with integration of both sides of the body; poor right-left discrimination, difficulties crossing the midline, and  reduced bilateral motor coordination – impacting on posture and postural control, thought to related difficulties processing vestibular input 
  • visual perception, form and space perception deficits impacting on visual-motor functions
  • difficulties with visual figure-ground discrimination
  • deficits in auditory and language functions.
  • tactile defensiveness and related sensory reactivity difficulties impacting negatively on attention 

A key feature of Ayres’ Sensory Integration is the adaptive response;  “an adaptive response is a purposeful, goal-directed response to a sensory experience … play consists of a series of adaptive responses that make the sensory integration happen. In turn, as sensory integration develops, better organization and more complex skills are possible” Ayres 2005.

In 2013, Viana et al reported that children with dyslexia show poor performance and variability while relating visual and somatosensory information. Children with dyslexia showed less coherent and more variable body sway;  suggesting difficulties in multisensory integration from sensory cues coming from multiple sources.

 

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Studies with adults and children found that there is reduced neurophysiological adaptation in adults and children with dyslexia. In 2016, Perrachione et al published research suggesting that people with dyslexia are likely to have differences in sensory integration and processing, noting significantly reduced adaptation to speech from a consistent voice and less adaptation to the repetition of words, objects, and faces. They provide evidence to support the hypothesis that reading skills in dyslexia are related to the degree of neural adaptation.

In 2017 Wandel and Le confirmed the importance of the effective processing of multiple sensory inputs, including successful sensory integration for competent reading. 

“Successful reading involves the ability to efficiently integrate visual signals with the sounds of speech and the language system; thus, diagnosing the reading circuitry requires testing the cortical and white matter regions that carry reading information from the visual, auditory, and language systems. Reading impairment can result from problems within neural circuits that are used for multiple purposes, not uniquely reading (Rayner et al., 2012, Seidenberg, 2017). Hence, we advocate assessing the circuitry broadly, not just portions that are highly specialized for reading.”

In clinical practice, some children with sensory integration difficulties benefit more from the use of coloured overlays. Research from Kriss and Evans (2005) suggests that 

“Children with dyslexia seem to benefit more from coloured overlays than non‐dyslexic children. MIS and dyslexia are separate entities and are detected and treated in different ways. If a child has both problems then they are likely to be markedly disadvantaged and they should receive prompt treatments appropriate to the two conditions. It is recommended that education professionals as well as eye‐care professionals are alert to the symptoms of MIS and that children are screened for this condition, as well as for other visual anomalies.”

Read the full article: The relationship between dyslexia and Meares‐Irlen Syndrome

Read more here:

Dyslexia link to eye spots confusing brain say scientists.

Dyslexia and Sensory Processing, is there a link?

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Changing lives with trauma; Sensory Ladders, Sensory Strategies and Ayres’ Sensory Integration

Last week I found a copy of a therapy review that a young person wrote a few years ago.

“My sensory me is about me – and only me. It’s not about anybody else. It helps me be me.  I don’t worry about what other people think I should be. I am starting to like me now. I’m not so sad anymore. Knowing why I’m different helps me to not worry anymore, and it means I can say what I need.”

He continued “before people told me what to do and how I should feel, and what I needed. It didn’t match up with what I really wanted. That confused me. It made me worry because I kept being wrong. When I did things, people didn’t understand what ‘made me’ do these things. I could see that, but I couldn’t understand why.

I loved therapy and all the stuff we could do. Making safe spaces on my first session helped me know you really knew what I was feeling inside. That was a bit scary. It was like you were a mind-reader. Then I got to know it was because you know about the brain and the senses, and you watch a lot. We did lots of experiments to discover how my body works. I liked that. All the stuff we got to use, the big golden hippo, barrel and all the swings. I loved playing Harry Potter with you – with the golden snitch, the hats and the magic wand. The swing was my fantastic flying broomstick. It was the best part of all. I liked to ride it with my cat.  I really liked bouncing on the mattresses and trampette. And the hot chocolate with cream was the best.

It’s different now. I can stop and wait to find the words. Then I check it out. I have much less meltdowns. My Sensory Ladder helps me explain what is going on. I use it with my new Mum and Dad, my new Gran, my teachers and even my friends know that when I am a techy scratchy cat, then the snarly spitting cat is not far away and I need a sensory movement break.

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And because of therapy, my body knows more now. I get it right more. I think I am just able to do everything easier. My new friends understand me better now. I don’t always get it right everytime.e, but it is better than ever before. I am calmer, clearer and concentrate better. I even join in with Netball now. My room is tidier now, and I can finally have shoes that have laces.

Thank you for helping me learn about how my brain is changing all the time.  It means I didn’t have to worry about how it was wired. I could just work on making new wires ready for my new life.

In the beginning, therapy can be really scary. You don’t want anyone to know what is hard. The book we used to get to know more about my senses helped me know it might really work when I didn’t know it would.”

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Here is a copy of the James’ My Sensory Me document including his sensory strategies – made during OT sessions. We made his Sensory Ladder together so others would know how to help and support me at school and home. He used it and practiced telling people his story until he didn’t need to use it anymore.

His Sensory Ladder was printed off and made into keyring sized tags to attach to his pencil case, his Foster Mum’s key ring with copies on the fridge at home, on his desk at school and a copy went to his first visit with his forever family.

“Our Harry Potter Therapy was the best thing I ever did and I will never forget it. I believe in the magic.”

The first Sensory Ladder was made in 2001. It is reported in articles published in 2006 and 2009.

1. Brown S, Shankar R, Smith K, et al. Sensory processing disorder in mental health. Occupational Therapy News 2006; May:28-29.

2. Brown S, Shankar R, Smith K. 2009. Borderline personality disorder and sensory processing impairment. Prog Neurol Psychiatry 13:10–16.

Thank you to James’ and his forever family for allowing me to share his story, with a few changes made to protect his identity.

 

 

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Dyslexia and Sensory Processing, is there a link?

Dyslexics show a difference in sensory processing

In 2016 Neuroscientists discovered that a basic mechanism underlying sensory perception is deficient in individuals with dyslexia. The brain typically adapts rapidly to sensory input, such as the sound of a person’s voice or images of faces and objects, as a way to make processing more efficient. But for individuals with dyslexia, the researchers found that adaptation was on average about half that of those without the disorder.
“Dysfunction of Rapid Neural Adaptation in Dyslexia” by Tyler K. Perrachione, Stephanie N. Del Tufo, Rebecca Winter, Jack Murtagh, Abigail Cyr, Patricia Chang, Kelly Halverson, Satrajit S. Ghosh, Joanna A. Christodoulou, and John D.E. Gabrieli was published in Neuron online December 21 2016 doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2016.11.020
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Another study by Jaffe-Dax, Frenkel & Ahissar was published in 2017 in eLife, 6, e20557. http://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.20557 ; “Dyslexics’ faster decay of implicit memory for sounds and words is manifested in their shorter neural adaptation”.
Dyslexia is a reading disability, although why it happens is still not understood.  In the 2017 study, they studied if neural mechanisms underlying dyslexia could be explored using a simple frequency-discrimination task. Participants were asked to compare two tones in each trial – and the study was devised to explore if implicit memory of previous trials affected their responses. They had hypothesized that implicit memory decays faster among dyslexics.
People with dyslexia showed a faster decay of implicit memory effects. They discovered that faster decay of implicit memory also characterised the impact of sound regularities in benefitting dyslexics’ oral reading rate. The study suggests that people with dyslexia had a shorter neural adaptation, with is in contrast to their longer reading times. They hypothesised this is because it reduces their temporal window of integration of past stimuli, resulting in noisier and less reliable predictions for both simple and complex stimuli.