When Different Sensory Needs Collide — Navigating Sensory Mismatch
Sensory needs are complex; everybody’s needs are a little different, and they don’t exist in isolation. So, what happens when one person’s sensory needs conflict with another’s? This is called sensory mismatch, and it can be challenging to navigate—especially in shared spaces like classrooms, homes, and therapy spaces.
This article explores sensory mismatch, why it happens, and five key principles to help create solutions that work for everyone involved.
Our Senses
Let’s start here: There are more than just five senses.
When we’re talking about sensory processing-related stuff, we’re probably talking about (at least!) eight senses. There are the five you learned about in school — sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch — and then three more on top of that:
The Three Additional Senses
Vestibular Sense
Vestibular sense — your inner-ear sense of balance and movement.
If you visualize yourself having a tiny cup of water located inside each ear (although the actual truth is more delightfully complicated, this works for the metaphor), then anything that would slosh that water around gives you vestibular sensory input.
Spinning, swaying, rolling, somersaulting, flipping, riding in a car, walking, riding a rollercoaster, and so on.
Proprioceptive Sense
Proprioceptive sense — your “deep body” sense. If I were to gently stroke your arm, you would feel that with your sense of touch. The receptors that feel “touch” are located in your skin. But, if I squeezed your arm, you would feel my hand on your skin and also feel the squeeze deeper in your muscle. The receptors that feel proprioception are located in your muscles and joints.
These receptors constantly give your body a sense of where it’s at in space, a mental map inside your brain of where you’re located and what you’re doing.
Anything that involves exerting your muscles, feeling an impact of part of your body against something else, or feeling squeezy pressure provides proprioceptive sensory input.
Interoception Sense
Interoception sense — your inner body’s sense of making meaning out of the messages coming from inside your body.
This can be emotional or biological meaning. If I feel my stomach flopping and my hands sweating, I might make meaning out of those messages to determine that I’m feeling anxious.
If I feel a tight burning sensation in my bladder, I might make meaning out of that message to determine that I need to use the toilet.
Making meaning out of the messages inside of your body to tell what you’re feeling, whether emotional “feeling” or physiological “feeling,” is your interoception sense.
Understanding Sensory Needs and Sensory Mismatch
Learning about the senses in our own body, our kid’s body, or a kid we work with’s body might help us start to understand what’s going on for them. The ways in which the things they’re doing are actually not them being “bad” but them trying to meet a sensory need in some way.
But it gets more complicated when you have to factor in other people.
After all, we might know everything we could possibly know about Kid A’s sensory system — but as soon as they have to go in a classroom with Kid B through Q, or be in a house with two siblings and a parent, or hang out with two grandparents, then there’s more than just one sensory system that’s being affected by what’s going on in the environment.
And even if Kid A is an absolute master at getting their own needs met, what they need to meet their needs might be different than what another classmate, a sibling, a parent, a grandparent, another caregiver, a peer, or a friend, needs to meet THEIR needs.
When one person needs something for their sensory systems that’s at odds with what another person in their environment needs, that’s called sensory mismatch.
Sensory mismatch is really tricky to navigate!
Principles of Navigating Sensory Mismatch
Here are five principles that can help in navigating sensory mismatch.
1. Escape Safely
“Escaping safely” is the most important tool, which is why I’m putting it first on this list. It’s not the only tool. It’s not the final tool. It’s not the tool that solves every situation. But it is usually the most important.
What Does “Escape” Really Mean?
“Escaping safely” sounds like this: When there is a sensory mismatch, then the parties involved need a way to safely escape it.
Using this tool worries people sometimes. They picture everybody just bolting out of the room the second something happens that they don’t like. That’s not what “escape” means in this instance.
We are using a broader definition of the word “escape.” It could mean running out of the room, but it doesn’t have to mean that.
For example, Safely escaping an auditory mismatch — a sound that is intolerable — could look like covering your ears. It could look like wearing earplugs or headphones. It could look like moving to a different part of the room, or stepping outside the room, or taking a break in the bathroom.
It could, but doesn’t have to, look like running out of the room.
Personal Senses vs. Proxy Senses
Some of the eight senses that I mentioned before are “personal senses.” They are experienced by only the person who is engaging in the sensory input.
If I eat a piece of chocolate and you think chocolate tastes gross, you don’t taste it just because I ate it. It was a personal sense. Touch, taste, proprioception, vestibular, and interoception tend to be personal senses.
Some of the eight senses are “proxy senses.” They are experienced by whoever is in proxy to the person engaging in the sensory input. If I want to listen to music out loud on my phone, and you hate the music, you do hear it just because I am listening to it. It is a proxy sense. Sight, smell, and sound tend to be proxy senses.
Why Safe Escape Plans Matter
Especially for proxy senses, somebody else in the vicinity needs to have the ability to safely escape them.
Having this strategy in place builds trust, which is essential when it comes to navigating sensory mismatch. That’s because human sensory systems are thoroughly intertwined with the systems in our brains that tell us whether or not we are safe.
Being in a situation with truly overwhelming sensory input is like sending blaring alarm sirens to a person’s brain that they are unsafe and need to get out of there to protect themselves at all costs.
When we build in explicit, overt plans on “how to escape safely” for kids, we make them feel safe. We give them the right way to escape — the way that would make sense for the setting we’re in — instead of leaving them to flounder on their own, to try to figure out their own form of emergency escape or to exist in high sensory distress.
Sometimes, escaping safely is genuinely not possible. This should be for short amounts of time, unusual events, or major crises.
When you’re on a rollercoaster about to go over the top, it’s not really possible to escape the sounds that other people are making. If you’re piled into a car evacuating an area because of a hurricane, it may not be an option to escape the smell of several wet people in the car together.
These are all (relatively) brief in nature, unable to be planned or prepared for, or unusual or unlikely to be repeated.
But if someone tries to argue that safely escaping is just “truly impossible” for hours, days, weeks, or years at a time and that a kid just needs to “learn how to deal with it,” that is not true, and it is also not helpful.
It often comes from adults who aren’t educated about sensory mismatch and how best to handle it.
“Escaping safely” always needs to be the first strategy available for people who are trying to help navigate a sensory mismatch.
2. Everybody’s Needs Matter
Two kids are in a classroom. One of them hums to themselves to focus and regulate. The other can’t tolerate the sound of humming. Whose needs get met in this situation?
Two kids are in a family. One of them wants the lights and TV on in the playroom to play. The other one wants the lights and TV off in the playroom to play. Whose needs get met in this situation?
Two kids are in a therapy room. One of them wiggles, tips their seat back, and fidgets to pay attention. The other gets distracted by movement. Whose needs get met in this situation?
The second principle in navigating sensory mismatch is more of an ideological statement to accept: When there is a sensory mismatch, then everybody’s needs matter.
Without this ideology in place, there are lots of pitfalls that people accidentally fall into.
The adult might be annoyed by the sound of humming, the extra flashing lights from the TV, or the movement at the therapy table. Instead of recognizing what’s happening — a sensory mismatch — the adult might think it’s their job to “lay down the law” and enforce one child being quiet, one child turning off the lights, or one child being still.
The adult doesn’t realize that they’re actually just acting to defend their own sensory preferences! They forgot that everybody’s needs matter, and focused only on their own.
The adult might recognize that a sensory mismatch is occurring but think it’s their job to defer to whichever child’s needs seem the most extreme. That might be whichever child has an IEP or another special plan. That might be whichever child will react the loudest or the most explosively if they don’t get their needs met.
Instead, keeping in mind that everybody’s needs matter helps the adult remember to keep problem-solving in the direction that’s going to help everybody instead of prioritizing one kid at the expense of another.
Also important — the adult counts as part of the “everybody” here! The adult’s needs matter, too.
3. The Need Isn’t the Action
Sometimes, adults get worried when they try to accept the idea that everybody’s needs matter because two kids’ (or a kid’s and an adult’s) actions sound like polar opposites.
One kid is wiggling to pay attention, and the other is distracted by the wiggling — how are we supposed to reconcile that?
What’s important to recognize is this principle: The action someone uses to meet a need isn’t the same thing as the need itself.
Sensory Needs vs Actions
The action taking place might be “wiggling” or “watching a classmate wiggle.” It might be “humming,” or it might be “covering ears.” It might be “turning the lights on,” or it might be “turning the lights off” (or it might be “yelling at your sibling about the lights”!)
All of these things are actions that give us a clue about the sensory need, but these aren’t the sensory needs themselves.
That’s because they’re not one of the eight senses. “Yelling” isn’t one of the eight senses, and neither is “wiggling,” “humming,” or “turning off lights.” The senses they are related to might be hearing (auditory sense), movement (vestibular sense), deep-body pressure (proprioception sense), and seeing (visual sense).
But the action isn’t actually the exact same thing as the need. It’s just the thing that the person did, by default, to try to meet that need. They might’ve chosen that action because it seemed easiest, or because it was the only one they knew about, or because it seemed most beneficial, or because it was their personal favorite.
But there are multiple actions that could meet sensory needs!
How to Problem Solve
Problem-solving from here often sounds like this: If an action is causing a sensory mismatch in a certain setting, then:
- The child needs a time and a place to do that action.
- The adult determines what needs that action is meeting. (The child may or may not be able to help.)
- The child and the adult collaborate on a different action that can meet the needs in that setting.
To reuse the same examples from above, here’s an example of following that formula to solve the problem. If the problem is, “One student tilts their chair back and forth to pay attention, but the movement causes distraction in another student during therapy time.” Then the solution will sound like:
- The child needs to know about a time and a place, not during therapy time when they can tilt back in their chair.
- The adult determines what need this action is meeting. A reasonable hypothesis might be, “I wonder if this is meeting a need for more vestibular input — since tilting gives a lot of movement and balance sensation.”
- The child and the adult collaborate on figuring out how the child can get vestibular input during therapy without being a distraction to the other student. Maybe instead of tilting their chair, they can wiggle on a wobble cushion that’s placed in their seat. Or perhaps they could be allowed to pace at the back of the room, behind the other student’s field of vision.
Remember, there are multiple actions that could meet sensory needs. Collaborating — and being willing to trial and error — is essential here!
4. Environment As a Tool
Sometimes, sensory mismatch might be a one-off event or a short-term crisis. Other times, a particular sensory mismatch is going to keep sticking around for a long time — for example, two siblings who will presumably coexist in the same house for many years or two classmates who are going to share the same classroom for a whole school year!
Another important principle of navigating chronically occurring sensory mismatches might sound like this: When there is a recurring sensory mismatch, maybe a change in the environment can help.
Using The Environment to Reduce Mismatch
Some parts of setting up the environment might be easy and intuitive. If there’s a regularly occurring sensory mismatch between the auditory needs of two students, then having headphones on hand that the bothered student is allowed to independently access might be all it takes to solve that.
Part of changing the environment might be finding what physical tool helps with the sensory mismatch, making sure it’s accessible, and that the child can utilize or operate it independently.
If at all possible, it’s best if this can be done without needing to ask for permission. Imagine the headphones are instead in the teacher’s drawer, and the student must raise a hand to ask every time they need them.
This leads to lots of potential extra challenges. What if the teacher is busy and can’t call on the student right away? What if there is a substitute teacher who doesn’t know about it? What if the teacher feels that the student doesn’t really need them right now?
Now, the student is left with no solution except to exist in distress or maybe to attempt an escape (safe and agreed-upon or not!) Not to mention that sometimes “out of sight” really is “out of mind,” so a student in distress who can’t see their headphones might forget that that tool even exists and that they can ask for it.
(By the way, you can find other sensory modifications for common classroom struggles here.)
Other parts of setting up the environment might require more creativity.
Can someone’s “proxy sense” be made into a “personal sense”? Maybe the child who is listening to music aloud can put in earbuds. Perhaps the child who is seeking visual input by flicking on and off the light switch could have a hand-held light-up toy that they can play with instead.
Can an upsetting sensory input be covered up by a tolerable sensory input? Maybe a child who can’t tolerate the smell of a food that another family member is eating could have access to something else to smell.
This could be as simple as carrying a peppermint or a lemon that they can sniff or as complicated as a sachet or scented stuffed animal with essential oils.
Also, consider how children will access the environment to meet their needs. Kids need lots of movement. If there is nowhere designated for them to move, they will start creatively problem-solving on their own.
But if there is somewhere designated for them to move, then they can be redirected to that space instead of moving in ways that might bother their friends, peers, siblings, or classmates.
Instead of the messaging being, “Your needs inconvenience everybody else,” the messaging is more like, “I preemptively knew that you might need this! Let me show you the way to do it so that everybody can share this space together.”
5. Know Your Own Needs
Knowing your own needs is more than just a single, simple tool to pull out when a sensory mismatch is already happening. It’s pervasive. It’s a change in what you know about yourself, which affects so many things about how you live in the world. This principle could be summed up as: Knowing about your own needs helps everybody’s needs get met.
Yet despite all that — how important it is and how it affects everything — it still doesn’t have to be daunting!
Why It Matters
When you, the adult, know about your own needs, it allows you to:
- Use language that models and normalizes the way people work together to meet their sensory needs.
- Recognize when children might be doing something in an effort to meet their own sensory needs.
- Notice when your own needs are going unmet, and help yourself to feel better.
Modeling Self-Awareness for Children
Parents, teachers, or other caregivers who know about their own needs can use language that helps explain this to children, modeling self-awareness. This isn’t delivered in the form of one long lecture or one big essay. Rather, it’s tiny little comments repeated over the course of sustained amounts of time.
For example, one day, you might mention, “My legs feel tired — I’m going to sit down while I listen to you.” Another time, you might muse out loud, “I wonder if I’m feeling so grumpy because I’m getting hungry?” In an escalating situation, you might be able to say, “Things are getting loud for my ears. I’m going to step away so I can calm down and think about what I want to do next.“
Each of these is only a sentence or two in length, but each of them explains, normalizes, and models understanding of a sensory principle.
Over and over, you’re articulating: My body has sensory needs. I’m figuring out those sensory needs. I’m doing what it takes to meet those sensory needs in a way that works for everybody.
That’s exactly the attitude we want everybody to bring to the table when we’re navigating a sensory mismatch!
The more you start to take notice of when you do things to meet your own sensory needs, the more you’ll notice others (including children) doing it, too. Where you might’ve once been tempted to think, “He’s just being such a jerk to his sister,” you might be able to realize, “He’s really overwhelmed by the noise she’s making! He’s trying to get her to stop.”
That allows you to make strides toward problem-solving that will be more productive for everyone.
And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you can literally help yourself feel more at home in the body you live in. If you’re struggling to identify what sensory needs you might have or what sensory needs you might already be meeting, try this: pay attention to the actions you already do and whether they cause there to be more or less of any particular sense.
That might not be the only reason you do those things, but it could be one of the reasons.
Are you walking out of the living room because you really wanted to check on the laundry or because it was loud in there and you were trying to get less noise?
Perhaps you are absently fidgeting with your hair or a pen because you are trying to get more movement or tactile sensory input!
Beginning to notice these things consciously allows you to decide later that you want to pursue a specific sensory input in order to help your body truly feel better and more regulated.
Solving Sensory Mismatch Flowchart
You can use this sensory mismatch flowchart as a visual guide to help you work through and address sensory mismatches by applying the principles from this article. You can also download a free printable version of the flowchart here.
Sensory Mismatch Flowchart
This free printable flowchart helps parents, educators, and therapists collaboratively problem-solve and reduce sensory mismatches by identifying needs, considering escape options, adapting the environment, and problem-solving alternative actions so everybody’s sensory needs can be met.
When it comes to navigating sensory mismatch — especially if you’re feeling personally involved — it can be tough to keep remembering in your mind that nobody is right or wrong, nobody’s needs are bad or good, and nobody’s needs are more important than anybody else’s.
This is sometimes most relevant to the adults, who might be used to sacrificing their own needs over and over on behalf of the kids — until they can’t take it anymore and suddenly snap!
But it’s true. Nobody is right or wrong. Nobody’s needs are bad or good. Nobody’s needs are more important than the other.
Instead, it’s all about finding ways to meet everybody’s needs.
Instead, it’s all about working together as a team.
