Badly behaved, or sensory processing issues? How the church can support the one in 100 UK children who have autism

Sometimes we think we see a child displaying challenging behaviour, yet if we take a moment to understand what is really going on we might find that it is something very different indeed. It might be that we are seeing a child who is overwhelmed with sensory processing difficulties and is unable to cope any more.

A child with sensory processing difficulties can react in ways that, at first glance, can be difficult to understand and explain. Their body is automatically reacting to their environment and their sensory input. If they become overwhelmed, this can create a ‘fight’, ‘flight’ or ‘freeze’ response. This can often be wrongly interpreted as bad or challenging behaviour.

Children with sensory processing difficulties can often feel overwhelmed and this can affect how they appear to people, seeming to be badly behaved or even aggressive. Sensory processing difficulties can also affect a child’s mental health, including anxiety, stress and depression.

An eight-year-old boy, let’s call him Timmy, had a variety of additional needs including then undiagnosed sensory processing difficulties. Timmy’s speech and language skills were very slow to develop and he would only be able to effectively communicate via speech from around nine years old. Until then, although he had other ways that he communicated, what he was communicating wasn’t always picked up effectively by others.