An Understanding of Proprioceptive Learning Disorder

These children may only feel aware of their own body and understand where they are in relation to their surroundings, when they are in direct body contact with a worldly structure, object or person.
This condition presents a sensory integration disorder based on the primary sense of body position and how the body is presented in relation to the surrounding environmental space. The development of this ‘Where Am I’ information is normally initiated in the womb. After just four months foetal development the fluid in the semi-circular canals (within the inner ear) receive information about the baby’s body position and rotational movement. In addition to this information the baby’s external body senses can perceive the physical restrictions presented by the womb and other aspects of the mother’s physical body.
These children may feel especially motivated to ‘live, love and learn’ in natural surroundings, where the environment provides a rich and gentle source of stimulation, along with a freedom from external demands and stressful sensory stimulus.
Unlike dyspraxia,a proprioceptive sensory deficit does not relate to motor co-ordination skills, but initially concerns may be mistakenly perceived as a movement and coordination problem. Obviously movement, balance and co-ordination skills are learnt through repeated practise and low levels of practise may prevail in the daily activities seen in those children with a proprioceptive disorder and this can limit their successful development of these skills.
Those who do not have a secure relationship with ‘where they are’ within the surrounding space,may feel disorientated and thus lack the foundations of wellbeing required for organised movement and interactive responses.If one’s body awareness and awareness of one’s position within the surrounding environmental space are unclear, even good and excellent levels of balance and co-ordinated movement are limiteddue to safety issues.
For most of us this basic body sense of awareness in space is taken for granted and functions as a largely unconscious system of perception that is successfully integrated with other sensory perceptual skills, (seeing, hearing, touch etc.) and other more abstract areas of perception and personal awareness.
If,after birth, the brain fails to provide basic ‘Where am I?’ information, the young child may compensate by developing a passive disposition. This can subsequently limit adventurous interaction with the physical environment and related levels of learning. This passive disposition may also encourage the child’s carers to promote a lot of personal body contact and comforting womb like methods of ‘holding/helping’. For example the child may respond well to being firmly wrappedin a blanket or sitting in a chair, pram or car-seat. This child may also respond well to any physical contact and indeed many learn to initiate and exaggerate their need for physical care so as to get extra physical body contact from their carer. For example, wanting to be carried; holding on to an adults hand or clothes; or demanding that communication is only received when accompanied by physical contact and/or holding types of restraint. Alternatively some children may resort to styles of compensatory behaviour that lead the child into antisocial behaviouras they attempt to gain the extra physical contact and holding they need to counteract their inability to locate themselves in space.For example a child may pinch, bit, hit or kick; another may run headlong through an empty space only stopping when they meet an obstacle or stumble and fall to the ground. Thus the antisocial behaviour is simply the way by which these children gain a required physical awareness of where their body is within an ever changing and often challenging environment. These children may only feel their own body and understand where they are in relation to their surroundings when they are in direct body contact with a worldly structure, object or person.
As young children they may also be prone to disturbed nights, falling out of bed and reluctance to going to sleep on their own. They may feel they need to sleep with another person so that they can gain a sense of ‘where they are’ and that it is safe for them to fully relax and sleep. There may also be issues with getting dressed or changed into clothes that appropriately meet different environmental situations. They may be particularly attached to wearing certain clothes and actively avoid changes of clothing and they can be particularly attached to routines and rhythms of practice. This suggests that getting dressed and undressed not only demands an awareness of where the different extremities of the body are!As well as an awareness of the exact position they are in? Familiar clothes are going to be easier to put on and take off and may also help the child to get a sense of body awareness, and older children may also gain a sense of personal identify and how to behave. A child’s attachment to certain objects,routines and rhythms of practicemay appear unreasonable, controlling and fixed and thereby assessed as signs of the autism spectrum. However, the author perceives autism as a symptom of compensatory behaviour; designed to provide a way of managing a specific impairment within sensory integration and subsequent neurological limitations.For example one boy would usually take twenty minutes or more before he was willingly venture out of the school minibus when out on a school trip. Presumably whilst sitting in his mini bus seat he was able to physical feel where his body was and this experience was both familiar and comforting while travelling in the minibus. Upon arrival at their destination the teachers and pupils had learnt that (if everyone stayed calm) eventually this boy would gain a sense of what was outside the mini bus and accept the teacher’s encouragement to leave the minibus. The teacher’s support for this was exclusively ‘one to one’ and often in the form of a comforting hand on the shoulder or holding hands. Maybe this child had learnt that his reluctance to willing leave the bus created a new perspective on the holding hands, body contact and one to one attention that would normally be avoided by a secondary age pupil like himself. This reluctance also saved him from the normal intensity of interaction and activity associated with making the best use of the new learning environment outside of the mini bus. His resistance thereby ensured that he could carefully direct what sort of participation he could manage during the day’s activity.
When left without appropriate guidance and encouragement children can resort to creating their own style of ‘Compensatory Behaviour’. Compensatory behaviour is designed to simplify the situation and lower the levels of external interaction. A compensatory behaviour pattern may also be used to create distraction or ‘time out’ or one to one interaction or an important pause in the proceedings. However, these compensatory patterns of behaviour may also limit movement and healthy breathing and suppress confidence, self-directed activity and positive learning experience. Compensatory behaviour patterns can become strong habits of triggered behaviour throughout one’s life. Fortunately,when these behaviours are considered unhelpful and disempowering,most adults have the capacity to witness and change the behaviour patterns both in themselves and others.
Similarly the adult carer, when faced with challenging behaviour, has the capacity to block out the controlling survival responses and choose to respond from the heart with care kindness and compassion. Sometimes the ‘heart-full’ responses will include holding clear boundaries and making firm decisions, however, when directed form the heart these responses can be received as a genuine form of love and devotion. Therefore the consecutive responses listed below are presented as a helpful encouragement rather than a formulated structure that might adversely override a carer’s natural approach to ‘caring, compassion and kindness’.