When working towards a diagnosis, naturally you want to find out all you can. Unfortunately, as you start to dig around and conduct research, it can sometimes become a little overwhelming. There are often so many new terms and different references to different disabilities that it’s hard to know where to start.

Here at SensationALL, our team aims to provide support to our users, while also providing a little educational content to equip families with the best tools to cope at home on their own.

SensationALL prefers to use the term Multiple Support Needs (MSN) to recognise the many factors that impact the lives of an individual and their families, as well as the care needed to support a functional life. We opt for this term rather than “Additional Support Needs” (ASN) since this is often linked to the field of education.

The majority of our service users have some type of neurodevelopmental condition, which means there has been some form of impairment in the development of the brain pre-birth, or around the time of birth, which affects the brains’ functioning. Commonly, this can include areas of the brain that involve physical or sensory function, which might cause learning difficulties, and might call for additional medical needs.

Lots of the people we work with have difficulty with one or more of the following:

• Information processing
• Learning disability
• Physical / motor disorders (Cerebral Palsy)
• Social and language Communication disorders (Autistic Spectrum Conditions)
• Epilepsy
• Anxiety disorders
• Behaviour and self-regulation or attention control disorders (ADD & ADHD)
• Sensory processing disorders
• Emotional & Mental health issues
• Genetic conditions such as Down’s Syndrome, Fragile X
• Other syndromes or medical conditions that effect brain development

Officially, the European definition of neurodevelopmental disorders says that these are:

“Disabilities in the functioning of the brain that affect a child’s behaviour, memory or ability to learn.”

Whatever the requirement, we always aim to empower our young people and adults and families with increased understanding, confidence, social and life skills to help them reach their full potential.

We know that it can be difficult, so if there’s anything you or your family are unsure about or would like to find out more about – please ask!

We are here to help.