Emotional Regulation: Is it Sensory or Communication?

A lot of families encounter moments of watching a child one moment and everything is fine and then feeling like you blink an eye and then that same child is crying , screaming, hitting, kicking and/or yelling. To assist with de-escalating said scenarios a quick question we can always refer to is… Is it sensory or communication?

Differentiating between Communication and Sensory

The key to differentiating communication-based dysregulation and sensory based regulation is if the “trigger” can be identified. For example, a parent is talking to another person and a child is tugging or babbling at the parent, but the parent keeps on talking to their communication partner; the child then becomes upset and dysregulated. This is an example of Communication Dysregulation where the “trigger” would be the child trying to communicate with parent but not having the skills or vocabulary to communicate with them. On the other hand, Sensory dysregulation is when you have no knowledge of what the “trigger” is.

Tips and Tricks

For Communication-based Dysregulation:

• Accepting all forms of communication from child (e.g. gestures, sign, babbles, word approximations, etc.)
• Reframing what the trigger was and show understanding of why a child is upset.
• Give a model of how this problem can be addressed in the future.

For Sensory Based Dysregulation:

• Don’t overload child with language (asking to many questions, yelling over the child, telling the child to stop, etc.)
• Stay Calm
• Reduce stimulus (turn off the lights, reduce noise, give child space)
• Wait for child to return to a baseline level before adding stimulus