Sensory children often face transition issues that interfere with daily functioning at home, performing at school, or interacting with adults and peers. These children have trouble with transitions with greater frequency, more intensity, and longer durations than typical children. A transition is a passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another: change (Webster’s Dictionary). 

In children with SPD, either sensation from sights, sounds, tastes, smell, touch, proprioception, and movement is not registered by the nervous system, or is registered but the associated neural connections are not made.  To move smoothly from one state to another, our neurological system must be balanced. In the sensory child, missing sensory information creates an imbalance in the nervous system that affects one or all domains. It is the neurological imbalance that causes transition difficulties in children with SPD. In addition, a contributing factor to their transition challenges may be the oft-seen inability to picture the future event in their minds, as sensory children often struggle with holding on to thoughts.  Both children with modulation disorder and children with sensory-based motor disorder may experience transition problems. For example, they may have a hard time figuring out how to get from one classroom to another (motor planning) or how to feel the feelings that come with saying good-bye to a classmate (modulation).

During transitions, children may become overresponsive to their overwhelming feelings of anxiety (i.e., unable to modulate arousal due to emotions). These big feelings can send children into a state of hyperarousal when they cannot process feelings appropriately.  Children with motor planning problems have trouble with transitions primarily due to sequencing deficits and have trouble determining the right steps to take to move through a transition. Everything you do involves sequencing, even mundane things such as leaving home in your car. You complete individual steps, including getting your keys, walking to your car, getting into your car, putting your keys into the ignition, and turning the key. The majority of people can sequence through these steps automatically.  Children with motor planning deficits cannot sequence through activities automatically. They may, for example, have trouble getting their coats, walking to the car, and getting into the car. When motor planning deficits are less severe, they may be able to get into the car and car seat but may do so very slowly.

The latest research indicates that many sensory children have elements of motor planning and modulation disorders concurrently.1 Hence these children will experience transition difficulties from sequencing deficits and arousal problems. While any change in mood, action, thing, place, or topic of conversation can be difficult for a sensory child, the most challenging types of transitions for these children are the following:

• Transitions between activities within a given setting, such as from playtime to dinner, playtime to bedtime or waking up and getting dressed.

• Transitions between multiple settings on the same day (e.g., preschool to therapy or school to an after-school child-care program).

• Transitions between institutional programs, such as graduating from one school and entering a different one or the beginning and ending of each school year.

• Starting daycare.

• Saying temporary and permanent good-byes (e.g., death of a loved one, moving, or a teacher’s maternity leave).

• Entering new relationships, such as with new caregivers or classmates.

• Participating in birthday and holiday parties.

• Starting a new activity (e.g., learning to swim, play the piano, or gymnastics).

• Transitioning between thoughts and ideas.

• Traveling.

Transition stress can manifest in unusual ways, including sleep disturbances, toileting accidents, tantrums, and a low threshold of frustration. Often, a transition will have a lag response time in underresponsive children. A stressful transition at the end of one day may not manifest behaviorally until the next morning as your child gets ready for school. Or, if your child experiences a parental separation due to divorce, the impact may show up weeks later. This lag response time is due to the child’s underresponsive nervous system, which has a slower emotional processing speed.

When sensory children move through a transition, it can elicit tantrums, meltdowns, physical attacks, verbal attacks, property destruction, or shutdown.  When a child exhibits challenging behavior, he feels frightened and desperately needs a parent or caretaker to provide empathy, love, and guidance during this difficult time. Or perhaps your child is not the child who is melting down and aggressive but struggles to navigate the course during transitions (which is often the case for passive underresponders). In this case, your child needs you to pilot him through the transitional maze.

Below are typical characteristics of children with transition problems. The list is not exhaustive but merely provides a sample.

• The child processes a transition very slowly. In other words, he is extremely slow to dress, leave the house, get in and out of the car, etc.

• You need to tell the child multiple times to get dressed, get his clothes on, get in the car, etc. Even after multiple requests, he still hasn’t followed directions.

• The child responds with aggression when you try to lend a sense of urgency to the situation. She may react with everything from pouting to slamming doors to a full-blown meltdown.

• The child may have trouble transitioning from one idea to another and will keep mentioning the same idea or thought over and over. She may get “stuck” on her idea for play and be unable to transition to another child’s idea for play.

• The child cannot bear to have anything thrown away, even unneeded old pieces of paper, old artwork, broken or unused toys, etc.

• The child becomes highly disorganized. Responses can range from running away, hiding, crying, or screaming to more aggressive behaviors such as hitting and biting. This behavior may escalate as the child moves through multiple transitions throughout the day.

Here are some tips to help your child sail through transitions:

• Use visual schedules and go over each day’s plan with the child. Visual Schedules are supports that provide your child with a picture of what will happen during various times throughout the day and help him understand the sequence of activities. This also helps you child’s routine become more predictable and routine. These visual schedules can be presented in a variety of formats, such as pictures, written lists, cartoons, etc. If you use written lists, include start and stop times for each event or activity noted. These schedules can outline the activities happening throughout an entire day, during specific routines (e.g., morning or bedtime), or to display steps required to complete a task (e.g., washing hands or getting dressed).

• Start auditory warnings 20-30 minutes out from the impending transition

• Use a visual timer (A Time Timer works well) and set it 10 minutes prior to the transition.  A Time Timer shows elapsed time in red so the child can have a concrete representation of time.

• Use validation “I understand why you would be sad to leave……”  Validation is one of the best ways to calm a child. Often, the child just wants you to acknowledge their sadness, anxiety, etc. You don’t need to try to make the sadness go away, just acknowledge the child’s feelings. This simple step can often make an enormous difference.

• Use a soothing tone when speaking to your child and remain calm.

• Use lots of empathy and a nurturing approach when dealing with the child.

• Use transitional activities (games, puzzles, etc.) to draw your child into the car or out of a place.

Structure, consistency, and emotional processing is indispensable in guiding your child through challenging transitions. It is important that you validate your child’s feelings, as the absence of validation will escalate your child’s behavior. Make sure all your routines are in place and consistent, such as morning routines, after-school routines, and bedtime routines. This predictability will go a long way in resolving transition problems in sensory children. Inconsistent use of transition strategies will not achieve positive results; however, consistent implementation will make your family dynamic a more peaceful one.