Poor Sensory Integration Can Lead to These 3 Miscommunication

Have you ever thought about which of the five senses you use when you communicate? The answer may seem obvious. We use our sense of sound and speech, right?

But wait, speech isn’t really one of the five senses, is it? Let’s try again. What do we use when we talk to someone?

Clearly, the first answer is still our ears. Then again, what about if we are communicating via messages like text, email or chat? Do we use our sight? If we are typing a message in turn, then are we using our sense of touch as well?

The more you think about it, it does start to get a little difficult and confusing.

That is because most of us don’t fully understand the role of sensory integration in daily experiences like when we are communicating. This can be very profound because we are rarely aware of the combination of senses we use whenever we try to express ourselves to others.

It can also go a long way to understanding miscommunication as well. Here are just some areas where poor sensory integration is caused

#1. Tone

Tone is often measured in verbal communication, whether we do it consciously or not. However, it is not just our ears at work when our brain is assessing tone. It has been found that areas in the brain involved in our motor system are also responsible for processing tone of voice.

This goes for listening and speaking in turn. However, this system is certainly not immune from error. Certain brain disorders as well as stressful situations can impede the brain’s ability to process tone. That is why we have moments where we may have had poor interpretation or control of our own tone. Our brain may not be entirely in sync with our ears, our motor senses or even both!

#2. Body Language

Reading and writing are not the only times where we have to use our eyes engaging in some form of communication. Our eyes are just as active as our ears when we are looking at someone’s body language even as they speak.

This is usually obvious when we have disabilities like autism that impair a person’s ability to detect nonverbal cues. The eyes may not be in sync with the ears, leading to a disconnect between listening to what is being said to them and unable to take additional meaning from non-verbal gestures.

On the other hand, there are situations where even the average person is not always as sharp (such as in the cases where people fail to know they’re being lied to). Body language can be a subtle way of manipulating how our eyes and ears work together in order to come out with a different misunderstanding of a person’s intentions.

#3. Reading

Speaking of reading though, did you know that emails are notorious examples of how people can misinterpret the tone of a text?

This goes back further to how our brain interprets letters and associates them with speech. We may not necessarily be hearing someone speak when we read a message, but we can certainly hear them in our heads. This is then further extended to how we imagine the other person’s voice speaking in messages they write to us.

Sadly, that is never a guarantee that we’ll understand a person’s tone from a text. What we have in our brains is just a faint reconstruction based on how we remember that person’s way of speaking. It is very dependent on how our sensory integration associates letters and words with the way our brains recorded their matching sounds.

Remember, our senses never act in isolation and that remains true when we communicate with other people. It is really important to know what else is at work in our minds besides how we are using our ears! That way, we can finally get better at understanding one another.

If you want to know more about poor sensory integration, then know that we at the Australian Tomatis Method are still here to help you. Please reach out if you need to, either by email at info@tomatis.com.au or by phone to Francoise at 0414 444 915.

Françoise Nicoloff

Official Representative of Tomatis Developpement SA in Australia, Asia and South Pacific, Director of the Australian Tomatis® Method, Registered Psychologist, Certified Tomatis® Consultant Senior, Tomatis® International Trainer and Speaker, Co-author of the Listening Journey Series, 40 Years of Experience, Neurodiversity Speaker

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