Our school had a royal visitor. She sat down beside one of the boys in my class.

Over the space of a few minutes he slumped in his chair and gradually fell on top of our guest.

Our royal visitor handled the interaction with great poise. Even when my pupil tried to straightened up, he was unable to do so without standing on her feet at least three times.

Sometimes children on the autistic spectrum can appear incredibly clumsy. They seem capable of tripping over thin air.

Believe it or not this all has to do with sensory processing. Balance and proprioception are two areas that are massively affected by Autism but rarely spoken about. Your proprioceptive system helps you instinctively know where your body is within the space you are in. Majority of us can lift our water bottle to our mouths without having to look at our hands and tell them what to do. But for individuals on the Autism spectrum simple tasks can be impacted due to a heightened sensitivity of body awareness (Hypersensitive) or a dulled sensitivity (Hyposensitive).

My pupil wasn’t being lazy as he slumped on the chair, he wasn’t clumsy as he stood on her feet getting up, he simply wasn’t getting the correct sensory input he needed.

Hyposensitivity within proprioception can look like vigorus and rough play, holding their pencil too tight and running their hand against walls all which is creating an awareness of where their body is at a certain point.

Hypersensitivity within proprioception can look like individuals feeling every movement as pain, avoiding hugs and difficulty sleeping.

Creating a sensory diet for those on the spectrum is vital. To help create the sensory input to help the proprioceptive system ‘wake up’ or to lesson the sensory experiences and calm their proprioceptive system. Ways to do this are ‘heavy work’ here are five examples below:

• Playdough
• Walking the dog
• Jumping on a trampoline
• Weighted blankets
• Using a vacuum cleaner

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