What Is Your Child’s Brain Having to Process Before They Can Even Start?

When a child is struggling in a classroom, we often notice the behaviour first.

• They are distracted.

• They are fidgeting.

• They are staring around the room.

• They have not started the task.

• They are getting frustrated.

• They appear not to be listening.

But there can be a lot happening before we ever get to the behaviour.

Think about one child sitting in a classroom while the teacher is giving instructions.

• The teacher is talking.

• At the same time, someone is tapping a pencil.

• A chair scrapes across the floor.

• Two children are whispering.

• Someone walks past the classroom door.

• The lights are bright.

• The walls are busy.

• Their jumper feels uncomfortable.

• They are thirsty.

And they are expected to work out what the teacher has said and get started.

That is a huge amount of information for the brain to deal with.

This is where understanding sensory processing becomes important.

First: what does the brain have to deal with?

The brain is constantly receiving information from all of our senses.

In a classroom, that information does not arrive one thing at a time.

It arrives all at once.

• The teacher is talking.

• A chair scrapes.

• Someone taps a pencil.

• A child whispers.

• The lights are bright.

• Their jumper feels uncomfortable.

• They are thirsty.

All of that sensory information is reaching the brain at the same time.

The brain then has to notice it, respond to it and work out what is important.

For many people, the brain can push some of that information into the background.

So the teacher’s voice becomes important, while the tapping pencil, scraping chair and corridor noise become less important.

But for some children, the brain may respond strongly to lots of those things at the same time.

So the tapping pencil is not just background noise.

The scraping chair is not just background noise.

The lights are not just there.

The uncomfortable jumper is not easily ignored.

Their brain is having to deal with all of it at once.

And while that is happening, we are still expecting them to listen to the teacher, understand what is being said and get started.

This is why a child can look as though they are not listening when, in reality, their brain may be too busy responding to everything else coming in.

This is what we mean when we talk about sensory modulation.

Then: what does the information mean?

Once the brain has received all of that sensory information, it then has to make sense of it.

This is called sensory discrimination.

Imagine the teacher says:

“Go and get your red maths book.”

The child walks over to a tray.

There are books, pencils, rulers, paper and equipment all mixed together.

The red maths book is there.

They can see.

But they cannot seem to find it.

An adult might say:

“It’s right in front of you.”

And it is.

But seeing something and being able to quickly pick it out from lots of other visual information are not exactly the same thing.

The brain has to sort through what it is seeing and recognise what matters.

Sensory discrimination also helps us understand information coming from our body.

Think about handwriting.

One child may press so lightly that you can barely see the writing.

Another may press so hard that the pencil snaps.

We might simply say they have poor handwriting.

But the child may be struggling to judge how much pressure their hand is using.

So sensory discrimination is about the brain asking:

What is this? Where is it? How much pressure am I using? Where is my body? What does this information mean?

Then comes the doing

Now imagine the teacher demonstrates a new task.

The child watches.

They understand what they are supposed to do.

Then it is their turn.

And they cannot seem to get started.

Or they start, but their movements are awkward.

Or they know what they want to do, but they cannot quite get their body to do it.

This is where praxis comes in.

Praxis is about turning an idea into an action.

Think:

Idea → Plan → Do

The child may know exactly what they want to do.

They may have understood the instruction.

They may have watched the teacher demonstrate it.

But their brain still has to work out how to organise the movements needed to actually do it.

You might notice this with things such as:

getting dressed, using scissors, using cutlery, copying a new movement, learning a new game, climbing unfamiliar playground equipment, handwriting or carrying out a task with several movements.

This is why the phrase:

“But I’ve already shown you.”

can be so misleading.

The child may have understood perfectly well.

Understanding is not always the difficulty.

Sometimes the difficulty is turning that understanding into action.

Now put all three together

Go back to the child sitting in the classroom.

The teacher gives an instruction.

First, the child’s brain has to deal with all the sensory information arriving at the same time.

It has to decide what to notice, what to respond to and what it can push into the background.

That is modulation.

Then the brain has to make sense of the information it is receiving.

• What am I looking at?

• Where is the thing I need?

• Where is my body?

• How much force am I using?

That is discrimination.

Then, if the child has to carry out an action, their brain may need to work out how to organise their body to do it.

That is praxis.

All of that can happen before the child has even started the task.

And yet what we may see is:

• Not listening.

• Not concentrating.

• Messing around.

• Taking too long.

• Refusing.

• Getting angry.

Those words tell us what we can see.

They do not necessarily tell us what is happening underneath.

Sensory processing is much bigger than noise

When people hear the words sensory processing, they often think of a child covering their ears or refusing certain textures.

That is only part of it.

Our senses are constantly sending information to the brain about the world around us and about our own body.

The brain then has to manage that information, understand it and use it to help us act.

We all do this.

Every day.

The difference is that we do not all process sensory information in exactly the same way.

For some children, ordinary environments can demand a huge amount from their brain before they have even started learning.

So the next time a child seems unable to do something they clearly understand, perhaps the question should not immediately be:

“Why won’t they do it?”

Perhaps it should be:

“What is their brain having to process before they can even start?”

Because once we understand what may be happening underneath the behaviour, we may respond very differently.