Behaviour

The sensory information that an individual can gather from the environment, including the behaviour of other individuals, impacts his or her behaviour and performance. When the sensory systems are over or under sensitive or do not function efficiently poor social, emotional or learning behaviours frequently occur. These generally result in one or more labels or a formal diagnosis of some sort. Increasingly these labels result in medication as the first approach to deal with the issue.

We strongly believe that your own observations can play a key role in uncovering what may lie behind learning, sensory, developmental or emotional difficulties and on these pages we offer a number of tools to guide you towards possible solutions.

We learn through our senses and we express what we have learned through our behaviour and speech. By carefully observing behaviour and by noticing speech, we often can uncover the underlying causes of difficulties. This is an important first step in order to be able to address any particular concerns.

People are complex and many elements play a role in defining how a person operates in the world and feels within him or herself. By recognising particular individual elements, however, it is often possible to make changes to a number of these small areas, thus starting the ball rolling and achieving overall results that far outstrip the changes to the individual areas.

Learn about the typical observations you can make yourself and discover how these link to the senses. Discoveries you can make include:

• What a hoover and a hair-dryer have in common. (Hearing)
• Why some children like to play in dark places. (Vision
• Why some people have to cut the labels out of clothing. (Touch)
• How does the smell of cut grass make you feel? (Smell)
• More about faddy eaters. (Taste)
• About ‘ants in the pants’ and trampolines. (Balance and Physical)
• Why the right ear is different from the left ear. (Speech and Language)
• How two ‘perfect’ eyes can still leave people with reading difficulties. (Learning)
• About chewing pens and smoking. (Behaviour and Performance)
• Where anger and frustration may emanate from. (Emotions)

On the road to transformation, this is arguably the most important first step you can take. It can totally change the way you see conditions or behaviours and foster understanding and empathy.

Learn what to look out for from these pages and start writing a diary in which you note down all your observations. Many of the typical behaviours described in these pages are quite common and on their own may not be that noteworthy. However, where there is a cluster of different typical behaviours, possibly across various senses or systems, it may be indicative of an underlying difficulty. By recording what you see and by understanding what lies behind what you have observed, you can start to make a difference.

See our Therapies page for information on how we may be able to help you, or someone you know, improve their performance with simple, quick and effective therapies such as Auditory Integration Training (AIT), Lightwave Stimulation (LWS) or a  Neuro-developmental (NDP) programme.