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Multiple Choice

Deficits associated with tactile defensiveness?

Tactile defensiveness disrupts how touch information is modulated and used to guide action. When touch is perceived as aversive, a child may be cautious or avoidant about contact, which reduces opportunities to explore objects and textures and to integrate sensory input with movement. This interference can impair praxis—the planning and execution of new or complex movements—and visual-motor integration, so tasks that require coordinating what is seen with how to move become more challenging. That’s why difficulties with visual-motor tasks and motor planning best capture the deficits seen with tactile defensiveness. Other options describe different aspects (such as basic tactile sensation or discrimination) that aren’t the defining pattern for tactile defensiveness, and don’t reflect the planning and coordination difficulties that commonly accompany it.

Tactile defensiveness disrupts how touch information is modulated and used to guide action. When touch is perceived as aversive, a child may be cautious or avoidant about contact, which reduces opportunities to explore objects and textures and to integrate sensory input with movement. This interference can impair praxis—the planning and execution of new or complex movements—and visual-motor integration, so tasks that require coordinating what is seen with how to move become more challenging.

That’s why difficulties with visual-motor tasks and motor planning best capture the deficits seen with tactile defensiveness. Other options describe different aspects (such as basic tactile sensation or discrimination) that aren’t the defining pattern for tactile defensiveness, and don’t reflect the planning and coordination difficulties that commonly accompany it.