Sensory Processing, Early Years and Trauma: Looking Beyond Behaviour
A child who covers their ears, constantly seeks movement, withdraws from touch or struggles to recognise hunger and pain is communicating something important through their nervous system.
Trauma
Research suggests an association between childhood trauma, attachment and adverse childhood experiences, and differences in sensory responsiveness. Trauma may affect threat detection, startle responses, body-signal awareness and the child’s capacity to regulate alongside a trusted adult. Sensory responses may include heightened sensitivity, reduced registration or active sensory seeking. This can persist long into adulthood and impacts many of the adolescents and adults I have worked with.
Early developmental disruption or disadvantage
Sensory development begins before birth. During fetal development and the first two years of life, the brain is particularly plastic and responsive to experience. Sensory information, including sound, movement, touch and light, contributes to the formation and refinement of neural connections involved in perception, learning, memory and movement. The developing nervous system is further shaped by the child’s biological, physical, sensory and relational environment.
Prematurity, pregnancy complications such as pre-eclampsia, a complicated birth and neonatal intensive care may change that early developmental environment.
For a preterm infant, the protected sensory conditions of the womb may be replaced by bright or continuous lighting, unpredictable noise, repeated handling, painful procedures, restricted movement and reduced access to consistent caregiver touch and co-regulation. These experiences are not developmentally neutral. During a period of rapid neurological organisation, they may influence how the nervous system learns to register, filter, integrate and respond to sensory information.
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I must stress- this does not mean that every premature birth, Caesarean birth or NICU admission may somehow impact sensory-processing difficulties. These experiences are better understood as possible contributors within a much wider developmental picture. A child’s sensory profile reflects the interaction of neurological vulnerability, health, gestational age, caregiving, environment and their later experiences.
More than behaviour
Sensory differences can affect much more than comfort, preferences or enjoyment. They may influence emotional regulation, play, learning, motor planning, relationships, self-care and participation in everyday life. What appears to be “challenging behaviour” may instead reflect distress, overload, uncertainty or an attempt to feel safe and regulated.
Importantly, the relationships between sensory processing, early years and trauma, and how they relate to behaviour are complex and multidirectional.
Support should therefore be trauma-informed, relational and individualised. The aim is not to make a child tolerate distressing sensations. It is to understand their sensory experience, strengthen felt safety and collaboratively develop strategies that support meaningful participation.
J.B.O.T. UK Ltd provides evidence-informed, neurodevelopmentally sensitive occupational therapy assessment and support, having undergone specialist training in Sensory Integration, neurodiveristy and trauma.
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