What is Tactile Defensiveness, or touch sensitivity?

Tactile defensiveness – Quick summary

Tactile defensiveness is a term used by occupational therapists to describe hypersensitivity to touch.  Individuals who experience touch sensitivity often say they are more bothered by things that touch their skin than others.  Sensitivity may occur with food textures, clothing or fabric textures, self-care tasks, and receiving a hug or kiss.  Or, it could be with specific items like paper, pencil or messy play.

Individuals who are sensitive to touch may respond by avoiding sensations or having a bigger reaction than would be expected by others.  For example, refusing to wear socks with seams because the seam or texture of the sock irritates their skin.  To date, there is no confirmed cause of tactile sensitivity but it is frequently reported by autistic individuals. Touch pressure and proprioceptive sensory input can help to reduce sensitivity to touch.  If you want to understand more, keep reading and watch the video below.

Kim gives a brief description of tactile defensiveness

What is tactile defensiveness?

Tactile defensiveness is a term used to describe the reaction that occurs when someone is very sensitive to touch. Someone who experiences tactile defensiveness will be more sensitive to touch compared to others. Often their skin is more sensitive to every day things clothing textures and hair brushing.  They may report that certain touch is painful.  Autistic children and adults frequently report tactile defensiveness. Here is some of the symptoms children and adults who experience sensitivity to touch may describe.

Tactile sensitivity symptoms

What causes tactile defensiveness?

The skin receives information from the skin about light touch, discriminative touch, touch pressure, pain, temperature and vibration. Each of these sensations give process different qualities of sensation and have different roles.  I explore these roles in more depth in our article on the touch system.  If you haven’t read this post, I recommend you read if first before reading any further.  It will help with your understanding of tactile sensitivity.

You can also learn more about the touch system in my free course ‘Introduction to Sensory Processing.’

Roles of the touch sensations

Light touch and pain typically warn the body about potential threats, so are often called ‘protective sensations’.  They are particularly sensitivity to touch.  Their sensory information is taken along a different nerve pathway to discriminative touch sensations.  (A nerve pathway is like a road that the sensory signals travel along to the brain.)

The protective sensations (light touch and pain) warn the brain that something has touched the skin, it may react immediately to protect the body.  After this, the brain then receives extra information from the discriminative touch pathway to let it know what that something was.

For example, if you touch something hot, the brain will immediately acknowledge the feeling of pain. As a result, the brain will make the body move your hand away.  Next, you will receive extra sensory information from the discriminatory touch pathway. This lets you know more about where the pain is and also that it feels like a burn.  The brain receives different sensory information from each pathway.

As another example, if your hair is dangling in your face, the first time it touches your face you might get a surprise.  You may not know exactly what the light touch sensation on your face was.  However, extra information about that piece of hair will then go through the discriminatory touch pathway or you might brush your hand on your face and this will let the brain know it’s just a piece of hair.  It is nothing to worry about and your brain will ignore it.  For individuals who are hypersensitive to touch or bothered by textures, the brains do not ignore these micro touch sensations.

Sensory Integration – a theory behind tactile defensiveness

Jean Ayres thought tactile hypersensitivity occurs because the brain pays too much attention to light touch and protective sensations from the skin. Instead of listening to the extra information available from the discriminative pathway, the brain keeps paying attention to the light touch and protective sensations.  These sensations are designed to alert the body to a problem or threat.  They are designed to keep the body safe.

Each time the brain receives a message from these pathways it initially thinks that something might be wrong. It gets ready to protect the body.  This is called a fight, flight or freeze response.  Jean Ayres thought that the brains of children and adults with tactile defensiveness interpret ordinary touch sensations, such as clothing textures or hugs, as a threat.  Their brains pay more attention to light touch sensations than the brains of children without touch sensitivity.

This helps to explain the behaviours that are seen in children or adults with tactile defensiveness.  Their responses to everyday touch can often result in meltdowns, arguments and avoidance.  This is because their brains are feeling that touch in the same way you might if you touched something hot or ran into a spider web. The everyday touch activates their brain’s protective system and triggers a fight, flight or freeze response. Some adults with touch hypersensitivity have also reported that certain everyday touch sensations feel painful.

Difficulty ignoring touch sensations

Children and adults who experience touch sensitivity may also find it more difficult to ignore touch sensations. A comparison would be the feeling of having a stone in your shoe, a stone that is very annoying and constantly drawing your attention until you take off your shoe and remove it.  For children or adults with tactile hypersensitivity, sometimes it is everyday touch that feels like the stone. This could be something like the tag on the back of their t-shirt, or the feel or texture of a certain fabric.  Their brains cannot ignore the feeling and they just need to get away from it, in the same way you want to remove the stone.

How can I find out if I am, or my child is, tactile defensive?

There is currently no formal test like a blood test or an x-ray to find out if someone is sensitive to touch.  Tactile defensiveness is also not a formal diagnosis your doctor can give you.  It can occur with other conditions such as autism or Asperger’s.  It can also occur alongside other sensory processing issues.

An occupational therapist is the best professional to seek advice from.  They will use questionnaires and observations, like Kim does in her online sensory assessment, to determine if it is likely a child or adult has tactile defensiveness.  A questionnaire, such as the Sensory Profile or Sensory Processing Measure, will give a score for how the child or adult responds to touch.  The therapist will also look at the individual questions to consider if these relate to touch sensitivity.

What can I do to help a child or adult with tactile defensiveness?