Adaptive response

Adaptive response

An adaptive response is a purposeful, goal – directed response to a sensory experience. E.g. A baby sees a rattle and reaches for it. Play consists of a series of adaptive responses that make sensory integration to happen.

Until a child reaches about the age of 7, the brain is primarily a sensory processing machine. This means that it sees things and gets meaning directly from sensations. He is concerned mainly with sensing them and moving his body in relation to those sensations. His adaptive responses are more muscular, or motor, than mental. Thus the first 7years of life are called the years of sensorymotor development.

As the child grows older, mental and social responses replaces some of this sensorimotor activity. However, the brain’s mental and social functions are based upon a foundation of sensorimotor processes.

As the child experiences sensations, he gradually learns to organize them within his brain and find out what they mean. He learns to focus his attention on particular sensations and ignore others. 

Organization through adaptive responses

          The greatest sensorimotor organization occurs during an adaptive response to sensation. This is a response in which the person deals with his body and the environment in a creative or useful way. E.g. we hear sound and turn over head to see what happened.

           Before our body can make an adaptive response we must, we must organize the sensations from our body and from our environment. We can adapt to a situation only if our brain knows what the situation is.

          Each adaptive response leads to further integration of sensations that arise from making response. A well-organized adaptive response leaves the brain in a more organized state.

          To integrate sensations, a child will try to adapt to those sensations. A child on a swing will move his body in response to the sensations of gravity and movement, and his movements help his brain to organize these sensations.

          Nobody can make an adaptive response for the child; he must do it himself. Fortunately, children’s are designed to enjoy activities that challenge them to experience new sensations and develop new motor functions.

          Child riding bicycle – sensory experiences lead to adaptive responses and adaptive responses lead to sensory integration.