The Hidden Sense You Need to Find!
Has your occupational therapist talked with you or your child about interoception? Interoception is one of our three hidden senses and helps us understand and recognize what we are feeling internally. The others are “vestibular” and “proprioceptive” (a story for another time). These three hidden sentences add in with our five more well known senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell for a total of eight senses.
These internal feelings can come on quickly and be difficult to understand. A person may not understand what is needed when their muscles begin to get heavy, eyelids feel weighted, and their brain feels slow. I’ve learned that for me this feeling is exhaustion and depending on the time of day I either need to drink some chai tea or slide into bed for a nap. For the children I work with it can be tricky to differentiate between a stomach ache from hunger and needing to use the bathroom, or both! This is where interoception comes in. Many therapists use the Interoception Curriculum created by occupational therapist Kelly Mahler to introduce experiments and activities that target various body parts to elicit a stronger response for easier identification.
If your child does not see an occupational therapist or have access to the interoception curriculum a great place to start is with the free printable resources and videos on Kelly Mahler's website: www.kelly-mahler.com.
Start discussing interoception with your kids today!
Activity ideas:
- When your child asks for a snack, ask where they feel the hunger in their bodies? Is there stomach grumbling? Do they feel shaky or tired?
- While washing your hands in the sink talk about the temperature of the water and how it feels on their hands, what do their hands feel like when they use the soap? What about when they dry them off on the towel or flap them to air dry?
- Running around the house? How fast is their breathing? Can they feel their heart?
- Identify your own internal feelings out loud! “My eyes are starting to get heavy, I’m feeling tired” “this soap makes my hand feel slippery and soft".
By Emily Noldin, OTR @otandemily
Emily is a Midwest occupational therapist who loves hiking, hot tea and listening to podcasts. She's passionate about providing neurodiversity affirming care to all of her patients.
