What’s the connection between a child’s hearing and sensory processing challenges? In this post, Occupational Therapist, Robin Abbott, shares the connection between hearing and sensory processing challenges.
Communication, Distraction, & Sensory Processing
Your child has trouble communicating, they’re easily distracted, or perhaps they have trouble tolerating sensations that others find acceptable or even enjoyable.
Your child may already have a diagnosis that explains the presence of some of these sensory processing difficulties.
But knowing your child struggles to learn and adapt because they’re autistic or have sensory processing challenges doesn’t tell you much. That’s why it’s helpful to understand a few things about how sensory processing develops.
Learning Happens Incrementally
None of us learn anything via a “brain download.” Rather, we learn by relating one “new thing” to what we already know. But if we’re starting at the beginning, at birth, what do we already know?
Well, if we are born full-term without any complications, we already have some skills baked right in to help us understand the world. For example, one of those skills is hearing.
At 26 weeks gestation, the cochlea, the organ that interprets sound waves as neural impulses, is fully formed. As such, so are its connections to the brain. (Interestingly, this is only true for one other sensory system, the vestibular system.)
For now, let’s examine three of the many things our hearing helps us develop. Magic wand time.
Developing Auditory Skills Starts in the Womb
Imagine yourself in the womb. You’ll be born in a few weeks, and your ears just “came online” not too long ago.
It started with a mumbly, low-level sound. Imagine a sound coming to you while underwater. That’s the type of sound you experience when in amniotic fluid.
You might have noticed a rhythm in the background. Hint…that was Mom’s heartbeat.
Then, just today, you started running out of room in your mom’s belly. Now your head is making regular contact with her pelvic bones or spine. Now that sound is clearer and louder!
You don’t know it yet, but mom’s voice is coming to you through bone-conducted sound, as opposed to water- or air-conducted sounds. Her voice is pretty intense (you can still hear it when you plug your ears and talk).
Hearing Helps Us Understand Communication
For the rest of gestation, your ear gets to practice listening to your mom’s voice. Further, your auditory system begins to notice the difference between voices and background noise. This is a skill you’ll need for the rest of your life, especially while learning.
It’s also going to help you become familiar with speech patterns and the cadence of speech. Specifically, you’ll be better able to know when someone is…
- communicating with you,
- singing,
- humming,
- or simply making noise.
And remember the rhythm of your mom’s heartbeat you heard in the womb?
Well, that’s the best rate to suck-swallow-and-breathe, which is a great skill to have on your first day in the world, so it’s great that you are familiar with it!
Hearing Helps Develop Eye-Movement and Focus
Now that you’re born, it’s time to start learning how your other sensory systems work.
Your eyes won’t be developed yet. They won’t quite be able to focus, and they really won’t know how far away things are when you’d like to see them.
So how are you going to learn how to focus your eyes?
Well, you could touch things to learn how far away they are, but you don’t have control over your tiny hands yet.
And there’s a LOT of the world out there you can’t touch. However, your ears are right there, ready to help you.
In the end, your ears and your brain work together using how your sounds (like babbling) bounce off objects near you. And THAT helps you develop depth perception.
Again, learning has to be built on what you already know, and learning the size of your world starts with the ears that have been interpreting the world for a while.
Hearing Helps Develop Tactile (touch) Perception
Now that you’re a few months older, you know how far away things are. Further, you have more control over your limbs. This means you’re motivated to explore while developing gross motor movements.
- Maybe you can roll or scoot over to that toy that’s just out of reach?
- What’s it going to feel like when you get there?
Well, it turns out your ears can help you out here too.
Fortunately, Mom or Dad has been laying you down on various surfaces (your blanket, the carpet, the floor) for tummy time. You like to entertain yourself by babbling while you explore, and your voice has been bouncing back to you from those various surfaces. And, wouldn’t you know?
It sounds a little different if those surfaces are soft like the carpet, or hard like the floor. Your brain remembers those changes in sound and relates them to the differences in texture, as you’ve touched them with your hands or mouth.
So now, you can guess what something might feel like when you touch it. Magic wand waved, now you’re an adult again.
A Child with Sensory Processing Challenges
Ok, now that we’ve explored the typical development of hearing and its impact on sensory processing as it relates to hearing, let’s take a look at a child with obvious sensory processing challenges.
Wouldn’t it make sense that a person who didn’t have a normal gestation and birth might have trouble…
- interpreting speech,
- or latching on to feed,
Since their ear might not have gotten enough practice? Or that a person with repeated childhood ear infections might have trouble with gross motor skills and
- depth perception,
- movement,
- or perhaps clumsiness?
What about a person who didn’t receive auditory cues about different textures and surfaces? That person may be squeamish about putting something in their mouth, which leads to eating sensitivities.
Hearing and Auditory Processing Have Far-Reaching Effects
There are many possible explanations for the difficulties a young child might have in adapting to the world. The auditory sensory system is worth exploring as one of them.
Keep in mind that a child’s hearing acuity might be completely normal. Auditory processing differences might be related to:
- History of difficulty hearing (as in ear infections)
- Current difficulty processing sound
- common in ADHD, autism, Auditory Processing Disorder, and dyslexia)
- Premature birth that didn’t allow pre-birth skills to develop.
All of those might affect a child’s learning ability.
Robin Abbott, MS OTR/L– TedX
Robin Abbott, MS OTR/L talks about sensory processing and the vestibular system. Friend, it’s all connected. This is a must-watch!
How to Help Your Child?
As such, an exam with a qualified audiologist is a good place to start. However, treatment might involve seeing a therapist (most likely an occupational therapist) who’s certified in auditory therapy. These auditory training therapies fall under different names:
- The Listening Program
- EASe
- The Tomatis Program
- Therapeutic Listening.
It’s a good idea, in seeking help for a child to ask his or her therapist if they’re familiar with these treatments.
Recap: Hearing Impacts Sensory Processing
Developing sensory processing skills is a gradual process that builds incrementally. If your child is struggling with various sensory challenges, it’s important to reach out to a neurodiversity-affirming PRIVATE occupational therapist.
Doing so will help you identify the root issues needed for your child to develop their sensory processing skills.
If this new understanding of how hearing impacts other areas of sensory processing resonates, I encourage you to learn more. These ideas are explained in my book Sound Advice: How to Help Your Child with SPD, Autism, and ADHD from the Inside Out.
Robin Abbott, MS OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 15 years of experience in pediatrics, the former owner of Dovetail Pediatric Therapy. She’s the author of Sound Advice: How to Help Your Child with SPD, Autism, and ADHD from the Inside Out. Contact her at dovetail.robin@gmail.com.
Robin,
that was an interesting point about how the vestibular AND hearing systems form *before* birth.