What Is Sensory Integration Dysfunction And How Does It Affect Learning?
Sensory Integration Dysfunction (SID) is a neurological disorder pioneered 40 years ago by A. Jean Ayres, Ph.D., OTR. Dr. Ayres developed the sensory integration theory to explain the relationship between behavior and brain functioning. As described in Williams & Shellenberger’s work entitled, How Does Your Engine Run? A Leader’s Guide to The Alert Program for Self-Regulation, “Countless bits of sensory information enter our brain at every moment, not only from our eyes and ears, but also from every place in our bodies”. The brain must organize and integrate all of these sensations if a person is to move and learn normally. It is commonly held that we have five senses: touch – taste – smell – hearing – vision. These basic senses or far senses” respond to external stimuli from the environment. The truth is, we have many more senses than that. Some hold that we can divide the senses into internal and external senses: that the “sense of well-being” is a sense too, but an internal one. So
