We are independent & ad-supported. We may earn a commission for purchases made through our links.
Advertiser Disclosure
Our website is an independent, advertising-supported platform. We provide our content free of charge to our readers, and to keep it that way, we rely on revenue generated through advertisements and affiliate partnerships. This means that when you click on certain links on our site and make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn more.
How We Make Money
We sustain our operations through affiliate commissions and advertising. If you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission from the merchant at no additional cost to you. We also display advertisements on our website, which help generate revenue to support our work and keep our content free for readers. Our editorial team operates independently of our advertising and affiliate partnerships to ensure that our content remains unbiased and focused on providing you with the best information and recommendations based on thorough research and honest evaluations. To remain transparent, we’ve provided a list of our current affiliate partners here.
Wellness

Our Promise to you

Founded in 2002, our company has been a trusted resource for readers seeking informative and engaging content. Our dedication to quality remains unwavering—and will never change. We follow a strict editorial policy, ensuring that our content is authored by highly qualified professionals and edited by subject matter experts. This guarantees that everything we publish is objective, accurate, and trustworthy.

Over the years, we've refined our approach to cover a wide range of topics, providing readers with reliable and practical advice to enhance their knowledge and skills. That's why millions of readers turn to us each year. Join us in celebrating the joy of learning, guided by standards you can trust.

What is Sensory Development?

Sara Schmidt
By
Updated: Mar 03, 2024
Views: 26,669
Share

Like most animals, humans rely on their five senses to experience the world around them. These senses--sight, taste, touch, smell, and hearing--allow each individual to interpret his or her environment; this is called sensory processing. The growth of these senses is known as sensory development.

This process starts during gestation. From birth, a child can begin to explore each of his or her senses. All five senses are not yet completely developed; sight in particular is very limited following birth. It is during this period of infancy when childhood sensory development begins to progress.

As the sense of touch is key in the bonding process between baby and caregiver, touch sensory development is normally well-developed during infancy. Newborns often respond to touch in a similar fashion to adults. Babies vary in the amount of touch they can tolerate. During childhood, children often explore their sense of touch through their sensitive tongues, which is why so many children place objects in their mouths.

Exploration through the mouth is also a form of taste sensory development. Babies are typically born with a preference for mildly sweet tastes, such as breast milk. As they explore more tastes, their tolerance for various flavors develops.

Hearing sensory development is usually well underway within the womb. Fetuses can hear the mother's bodily noises as well as loud noises, such as car horns, outside her body. The most familiar sound to a baby is typically his or her mother's heartbeat, which often provides a soothing during moments of distress.

An infant's sense of smell develops within the womb as well. Fetuses recognize the smell of their mother's amniotic fluid. As with touch, a baby can recognize his or her mother through the sense of smell. The smells of other family members the baby comes into contact with daily also become familiar quickly, helping the baby identify different people.

Sight development occurs slowly at first. As a newborn, a baby can see objects within eight to ten inches (20 to 25 centimeters) of his or her face. The first sight a baby normally learns is the face of his or her primary caregiver. Though other colors remain vague during the first few weeks of life, white, black, and red are easily distinguished. As the infant grows, so does his or her range of sight.

Though sensory development is a natural process for most babies, sometimes complications can occur. This is known as sensory integration dysfunction. Various circumstances, such as prematurity, can lead to this dysfunction. Sensory integration dysfunction usually results in either too much or too little sensory input from his or her environment. Physical and occupational therapy can be used to help improve, or even correct, this condition.

Share
The Health Board is dedicated to providing accurate and trustworthy information. We carefully select reputable sources and employ a rigorous fact-checking process to maintain the highest standards. To learn more about our commitment to accuracy, read our editorial process.
Sara Schmidt
By Sara Schmidt
With a Master's Degree in English from Southeast Missouri State University, Sara Schmidt puts her expertise to use by writing for The Health Board, plus various magazines, websites, and nonprofit organizations. She published her own novella and has other literary projects in the works. Sara's diverse background includes teaching children in Spain, tutoring college students, running CPR and first aid classes, and organizing student retreats, reflecting her passion for education and community engagement.
Discussion Comments
By lluviaporos — On Feb 26, 2014

@browncoat - I don't know about that. I think most cultures make allowances for child development stages. They expect children to go to bed earlier and to listen to different music and know they need to guard against babies putting different objects in their mouths.

Baby-speak, for example, is actually fairly universal, because people instinctively know that babies will listen to words that are simple and repetitive. You can try to talk like an adult to another adult at your baby but that's not really a sign of sophistication. It might even be a disadvantage.

By browncoat — On Feb 25, 2014

@pleonasm - I actually think it is largely a social thing though. I can remember refusing a few things when I was a kid, because I thought they smelled terrible (like Parmesan cheese, which I love now) but for the most part I just ate what my parents ate. In a lot of cultures they don't cater to the development of children like that and don't miss it either. The kids just eat what the parents do.

By pleonasm — On Feb 24, 2014

I actually find it quite interesting the way that taste develops in children and then matures in adults. There's a reason that kids don't want to eat vegetables and it is only partly because of social conditioning (i.e. when parents basically expect kids to not like vegetables and act as though they shouldn't and bring about the situation with their own actions).

Kids like mild and sweet flavors because they find other kinds of smells and tastes overwhelming. This is why you might have loved a particular flavor when you were a kid, but find it bland as an adult. It's part of children's development to prefer things like fish fingers and fries rather than the spicy or savory meals their parents eat, because those spices and herbs taste much stronger to a child.

It's because you start to lose taste buds as you get older and so you start to want more flavor in your food to compensate.

Sara Schmidt
Sara Schmidt
With a Master's Degree in English from Southeast Missouri State University, Sara Schmidt puts her expertise to use by writing for The Health Board, plus various magazines, websites, and nonprofit organizations. She published her own novella and has other literary projects in the works. Sara's diverse background includes teaching children in Spain, tutoring college students, running CPR and first aid classes, and organizing student retreats, reflecting her passion for education and community engagement.
Share
https://www.thehealthboard.com/what-is-sensory-development.htm
Copy this link
The Health Board, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.

The Health Board, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.