sensory integration and its significance for functioning and developing children speech

Sensory integration processes underlie the relationship between psychoneurological functions and learning difficulties. Adequate sensory processing is absolutely essential for the functioning and development speech in children. Sensory processing is a complex process, allowing the nervous system to receive all kinds of information provided by sensory receptors involved in sight, hearing and sense of smell as well as the less known senses of touch, proprioception (the sense of the relative position of one’s own parts of the body) and the vestibular system, which is responsible for providing the information associated with the body’s movement. Sensory processing dysfunctions may affect postural reactions, muscle tone, motor planning, emotional behaviour, development of cognitive functions and speech. They result from the failure to register sensory information, sort it, process the stimuli, and adaptively respond to them. Sensory processing therapy is one of the latest, comprehensive therapeutic methods used in children with psychomotor impairment, speech disorders and learning difficulties. Sensory integration involves organizing sensory input data processed by the brain to produce adaptive responses to the demands of the environment. Impaired sensory integration occurs when the ability of various sensory systems to register, process, integrate and modulate stimuli, and to combine the information with input received from other systems is disrupted. The aim of this study is to present the connections between sensory integration/processing and disorders in children’s functioning and speech.