Sensory Challenges and Masking

Many neurodivergent (gifted, Autistic, 2E, ADHD, etc.) learners have unique and challenging sensory needs that are different than what neurotypical children present with. Where do these differences come from? And what can we do about them? This presentation will outline the relevant neuropsychological differences between neurotypical and neurodivergent learners and how those differences manifest in and outside of the classroom. We will also connect sensory needs to masking behavior and explore ways to that impact. Lastly, we will talk about ways to manage sensory needs in different environments, with an emphasis on doing so safely.

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See transcript below

Thank you. Alright, welcome everyone. We're so happy to have you here tonight. If you'd like to introduce yourself in the chat, feel free to do.

We're going to be talking about 2E sensory talent challenges and masking with Dr. Matt tonight. In case you're not familiar with Real, we are a nonprofit and we work to ensure that Silicon Valley twice exceptional students thrive in school. We do talks like this for parents and we have other resources for parents that I'll talk about shortly and we also do professional development and create resources for educators.

If you're here, you probably know what 2E is, but just in case we talk about it as a student that has both distinguishing strengths, high abilities or potential in one or more areas and complex challenges such as autism, ADHD, anxiety, dyslexia, and others at the same time. And these 2 yellow and blue parts of the student combined to make green and so 2E individuals have both the strengths and challenges at the same time. And they combine and interact and so you can't only support one or the other. You have to support them both simultaneously, which can make them a complex learning profile.

If you're not familiar with our website, Real2E.org, we have many previously recorded events, blog posts, white papers and other resources for you all organized by subjects. So feel free to visit our website for more information. We still have one more event in this school year about reducing power struggles with your 2E child with Dr. Danica Maddox and we have our bimonthly parent support groups as well and recordings of all the other events we've hosted this year.

So you can find those at Real2E and on YouTube. In addition, Real joined this group of esteemed colleagues to launch this new Neurodiversity speaker series. In fact, Sam Drayson is speaking tomorrow evening, so please join us at 5:30 and you can go to Neurodiversity Speaker Series dot org to learn more about all these amazing speakers.

If you're interested in joining Real's Google Group, it has hundreds of parents that share advice and resources to support twice exceptional students. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and see all of our previous recordings on YouTube. Real just launched a brand new white paper which is an educator model which discusses how embracing flexibility, attending to strength, reframing behaviors and developing connection, support twice exceptional learners and all learners in the classroom and it gives specific and practical tips for how educators can do so.

So please visit Real2E.org to download this. We also go to schools and do workshops such as learner different simulations and introduction to twice exceptionality. So please connect us with your school if you'd like us to come.

Real also recently launched an IEP guide for twice exceptional learners in the Bay Area, although most of it is applicable to IEPs. So please feel free to download this free guide from our website as well. And I would now like to introduce our wonderful speaker, Dr. Matt Zacreski.

Matthew, Dr. Matt Zakreski, is a high energy creative clinical psychologist and professional speaker who utilizes an eclectic approach to meet the specific needs of his neurodivergent clients. He is proud to serve the gifted community as a consultant, a professor, an author, and a researcher. He has spoken hundreds of times all over the world about supporting neurodivergent kids.

Dr. Zacreski is a member of Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted, National Association for Gifted Children and the New Jersey Association for Gifted Children and the Pennsylvania Association for the Gifted. Dr. Zacreski graduated from Widener University's Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology and he is the co-founder of the Neurodiversity Collective. Welcome, Dr. Matt.

Well, I am so excited to be here. Thank you everybody for giving up your Monday evening, especially East Coasters, it's like extra cup of coffee is gonna be needed tomorrow. Okay, let's see, so we've got all this. Okay, so I'm gonna share my screen and we're going to go ahead and jump right into this.

All right, come on, come on, PowerPoint, we're just, we believe in you, you can do this, go team. And we will. Okay, I'm like, I'm professional speaker who doesn't know how to use PowerPoint, who knew?

Alright, so, alright, I can't listen to you because my t-shirt is too itchy. The sensory needs of gifted 2E learners, so let's go in. So, thank you for my lovely introduction, but yes, if you don't know me, I'm Dr. Matt Zakreski. Everybody calls me Dr. Matt, please feel free to do the same.

We're going to talk about sensory processing and sensory processing disorder. Talk about how that impacts our gifted and 2E populations. I'm going to share the slides with my illustrious colleagues who will then share them with you.

This recording, we are recording right this I remember hearing the voice. And you guys have submitted an incredible group of questions and that is awesome. And yes, definitely feel, keep the questions coming as we go, and you know if one is totally relevant to that moment right then I'll probably jump in and say it then we're gonna have plenty of time for questions at the end.

So, all right, so let's go ahead and get going. So, little exercise, right, it's late, it's been a long day, we're gonna do a little exercise and get everybody's brain moving. So, okay, everybody, wherever you are right and I saw in the chat, we're coming from all over the country.

Do me a favor and take both your hands if you're able and put them on your belly. Alright, and what I want you to do is breathe in through your mouth until your belly gets big. And after you've done that, you can exhale through your nose.

Now do that another time. Now, out your nose. So what we're doing is we're grounding ourselves, we're paying attention to our breathing, paying attention to our body.

But take one more deep breath with your hands on your belly. And then when I'm done, I want you to stop. I had a referral once where they were like, we think he's a cannibal. I'm like, why do you think this child is a cannibal? He keeps biting his thumb! I'm like, so you read cannibal from that? Is he doing it to other children?

Or is he just, you know, looks like it's a sensory seeking behavior. I mean, it's not the most normal, but it's, you know, it's what it is. So, and then it can be self injurious, you know it is a subtle way to hurt yourself.

Where you just peel the skin off or you pick at a scab, right, and you get that, you know, the bleeding or the injury, right. So it's important to have a frank conversation about it and see when it's happening, why it's happening, with whom it's happening. But it's all, it's very much something that giving kids different sensory inputs, whether it's Vaseline, gloves, a fidget toy, you know, honestly one of the kids I work with who is she has a long history of skin picking.

We've, when she's feeling sensory aroused, we give her an orange. And we just peel the orange, right? And she knows at this point to peel it very slowly, right, but that gets her fingers moving.

The citrus smell is good for her. It redirects that and her skin pickings gone way down. Right, so you know that's, I mean, that, that, as much as a bag of oranges does, and I don't know, you guys are in California, I don't know how much an orange is now.

Yeah, it's a banana, Michael, what could it cost, $10? Arrested development forever, so. Okay, so.

And although they keep pouring in, we're gonna close it up after that. It's almost 11 PM over there. Yeah. And we will send out both the slides and the recording, so don't worry about that.

So the very last question is why is so much of this information not well known or understood by the medical community, by educators, even by OTs and other therapists. And that's, I mean, it's a great question to wrap up with because it's sort of what we were all here for in the first place, right. The doctor in me says that this brain research is relatively new.

And we are just learning a lot about how the sensory stuff works. The practical person in me says that sensory needs are wildly inconvenient. If you got to scrounge to grocery stores to buy the one kind of chicken nuggets your kid will eat, it's a pain in the ass. If you have to, if you'll only wear one kind of sweatpants or one kind of bra or only certain kinds of makeup, it's a pain in the ass, right?

So I think that it's been, sensory needs have been associated with the autism community for so long that people didn't really appreciate how they show up in other neurodivergences like ADHD and giftedness. A lot of the dyslexic kids I work with have significant sensory needs, right, so it quite literally is a part of a different brain. So now that we understand things as different brains, we're seeing how the sensory stuff maps on to that.

Right, so the fields are catching up to the neuroscience and that's why we go to presentations like this. That's why organizations like Real and SENG and Davidson are really trying to put out information that says like, hey, like this isn't just an autism thing, guys. It's a neurodivergent thing and the more we understand it, the more we are establishing that beachhead that it can be all of our kids.

It can be all of us. And that's why you can take this slide deck and share it with your providers, your kids' schools, your therapist, your OTs, whatever it is. And if that doesn't work, you call me and I will happily jump on a call with whoever that person is because like I said, I can own this.

I'm, I don't know, Kelly, you've known me a long time, expert, right, I mean, that's, I know I'm putting you on the spot, but like, you know, so if I'm considered an expert and this was a learning curve for me, right, you would expect your, your family practitioner doctor in your small town to not know this stuff. And that's okay, it's fine not to know it. My own GP wanted this slide deck, she's like, is the sensory thing real, I'm like, I have a slide deck on that.

So I emailed it to her. But right, so it's the sort of thing that knowledge is power. And the way you step into that space as adults slash advocates, congratulations, you're all advocates now, is that you come prepared with information and because it's from a respected professional, it's gonna carry a little bit of weight.

But this presentation comes with a standing invitation to loop me into these conversations if you need it because if I can't do it, I'll find you somebody who can, right. But the more we understand the unique neuro individuality of our kids, the better we can serve them, right. Like the reason the last cartoon here I chose it: Mother, I am tired, cold, hungry, cranky, and my shirt itches. Do you actually think I'll learn anything today?

And it's funny, but it's also so freaking true, right. I mean, you kids who roll up to therapy who aren't ready to do therapy because their shirt's itchy, you know, I mean, how could we expect somebody to get a job, learn at school, practice driving, do a million different things if their sensory stuff is out of whack. If we teach them how to regulate, then all those other things become back on the table. And that's our job and that's what we can do, but it's going to require us to do a little educating.

Thank you so much, Dr. Matt. Thank you everyone for attending. This was so fun and enlightening and kept everyone awake with all the humor, I really appreciate it. And we thank everyone for joining us, you have a lot of thank yous and this was so amazing in the chat, so hope you're seeing all those.

We can. I mean, truly my pleasure. I mean, you guys were so awesome to work with, you got an amazing group here and I mean, it just, what a privilege to be able to work with you guys, I mean, really. I'll come back anytime, so.