What's your Adult Sensory Emotional Personality Style?
The way we process sensations and move our body impacts the emotions we feel. The emotions we feel impact how we process sensations and move our bodies. How we sense, move, and feel impacts how we act and interact with others – our personalities.
Use this form to determine your Sensory Emotional Personality Style.
Over the last nine years, Founder and Director – Michele Parkins MS, OTR, IMH-E® - has been collecting data on the sensory-emotion-movement/action-personality connection based on information shared by hundreds of children, parents, and families that have been seen at Great Kids Place. In collaboration with other experts in the field, Michele Parkins and her research team have analyzed this data to ensure the proven efficacy and validity of the Great Kids Place model. The work being done at Great Kid Place – guided by the Sensory Emotional Engagement Model - is the culmination of this research.
The Sensory Emotional Engagement Model is an evidenced-based approach that addresses both sensory-motor and social-emotional development. As occupational therapists, mental health clinicians, and educators working within the sensory processing and integration framework, we commonly experience families reporting challenges of emotion dysregulation, inattention, poor social skills, seeking behaviors, and negative emotional experiences (anxiety, frustration, anger, big emotions); consequently, these presenting challenges are often reported as leading to difficulties in family, school, work, and peer group participation and relational engagement.
We also see that individuals with these reported social-emotional challenges have difficulty processing sensation and/or organizing and coordinating their actions. This can look like one or some of the following body-based experiences: more sensitive to or overwhelmed by sensations; less sensitive, unaware of, or slow to respond to sensations in the environment or from their body (including objects and people); seeking sensory input - such as touching or moving all the time; muscle weakness and weak core strength; poor endurance; motor coordination difficulties; and difficulty listening to directions and following through with tasks to their completion. Our research has determined that there is a direct relationship between these reported social, emotional, sensory, and movement-based challenges. Michele has coined the term for these correlations: Sensory Emotional Personalities.
Disclaimer: This quiz is intended for fun and informational purposes only. The results are subjective and open to interpretation. For accurate analysis or guidance, please consult a trained and qualified sensory-emotional professional.
©2024 Michele Parkins
These individuals are deep feelers and may be considered highly empathetic or sensitive. They are highly attuned to the feelings and experiences of others and their own experiences. They know quickly whether someone "gets them" or not. They often feel deeply for others.
When they find their strength of deeply feeling, they can 'read the room' quickly and adjust their responses to the expectations implied by others. Although this adjustment is prosocial and can support them in engaging in social environments, it is not uncommon for them to take a long break when in the safety of their own home.
These individuals also present as anxious, uncomfortable, and stressed, or quick to become anxious, uncomfortable, and/or stressed from a once calm state. Linking these body and emotion-based experiences together, we get someone who can be stressed in new and unpredictable situations or during unexpected changes, apprehensive about participating in new activities, and shy or hesitant in social situations.
Individuals who are deeply feeling tend to be more sensitive to sensory input and/or their expected performance of activities/tasks. They tend to respond more than expected and for longer than anticipated to sensory experiences, often avoiding specific sensory experiences or having big emotional reactions to sensory experiences. When this causes significant challenges in daily life, it can be called sensory hyper-sensitivity or sensory over-responsivity. These individuals can be overwhelmed by motor experiences, often avoiding specific motor experiences or having big emotional reactions to motor experiences/motor demands. When motor experiences become a major challenge in daily life, this can be called Dyspraxia.
Individuals with this profile may be particular about wearing certain clothes, eating certain food, or engaging in specific tasks; they may dislike noisy, busy environments and/or get overwhelmed by movement experiences. They can experience just one or several of these reactions.
More details:
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To learn more about Sensory Emotional Personalities, visit the link below.
These individuals - while seemingly daydreaming - often fall deep into thought. Deep thinking is their strength. They may ask big questions, with hours of pondering behind them. These individuals likely represent the great thinkers of our world, the theorists and conceptualists. They can even use this strength to support their body awareness. We notice individuals who have tapped into this strength to support their actions use thinking to guide their actions to find success - they watch their movements closely; they take extra time to think about how to move their body to follow a direction and then move. Yet others have thought about the way their body feels when they get more input and will move and touch more often than expected to get more input to their body, which also helps guide their actions to find success. Others with this profile are completely content, staying in their thoughts and not engaging in the exploration of various sensory opportunities.
At the same time, individuals who are deep thinkers tend to be unaware of or less sensitive to sensory input and opportunities, processing slowly or having a delayed response, minimal or no response to input from the environment and/or from their body. When this causes significant challenges in daily life, it can be called sensory hypo-sensitivity or sensory under-responsivity. These individuals can have decreased body awareness and can often seem impulsive as they move with little regard for their surroundings. They can respond less than expected to pain, bumping into things, or knocking things over with decreased awareness of this occurrence. They may not respond to their name being called or need directions provided to them multiple times. These individuals can appear as if they are in their own world, often daydreaming, tuning out during conversations, or missing social cues from others. They seem inattentive, not paying attention to their surroundings and the impact of their actions on others.
More details:
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To learn more about Sensory Emotional Personalities, visit the link below.
These individuals can be full of wonder - wondering how things fit together, how to accomplish a task best, and how things work. They may ask many questions to learn how things work and fit together. When they find their strength of wonder, they can spend a lot of time tinkering and experimenting with things, like inventors or engineers, and then engage in telling others about their experiments using great details.
At the same time, individuals who are full of wonder present as confused about the input and information they receive - having difficulty interpreting the just right way of doing things and fine-tuning sensory input or discrimination/perception of sensation. There is often a mismatch between their actions and the expectations of a situation. Overall, they often have difficulty organizing their body to do what they are asked to do. They have difficulty finding the right pacing and timing of actions, often moving too fast or too much, using too much force and too little force. They can have difficulty with balance and accurate placement of their body and/or can choose inefficient ways of doing things.
These individuals can be surprised or embarrassed if what they try for a task does not work, though you knew it would not work or maybe even tried to convey this to them. They are disorganized and confused about how things go together or how they should happen after they make an initial attempt that does not work. They may have a limited emotional range, having trouble feeling the "in-between," often responding in catastrophic ways, i.e., very angry or not angry at all, rather than getting a little angry. Socially, the comments or ideas they share do not fit into the current conversation, and their stories get stuck in details to the point where the whole story is lost. They forget what they are saying or have difficulty getting to the point.
More details:
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To learn more about Sensory Emotional Personalities, visit the link below.
These individuals are highly compassionate. Having often needed help themselves, they are wonderful helpers to others they see in need. They are usually the first to offer to 'take the job.' They also care very deeply for others, often showing a lot of affection.
Compassionate individuals tend to present as frequently needing support to their body. They can present with low endurance or, quite the opposite, can move often with momentum in an 'all or none' fashion. They are either up and going or low and slow. It can be challenging to get up and go, but once they are, they go, go, go until they crash. The need for support could be due to low endurance, decreased body awareness, and/or poor ability to plan and organize their actions in a well-graded way. When this need significantly impacts daily life, it is likely due to significant weakness in muscular strength or core strength, resulting in an inability to remain still or seated for expected periods of time and minimal strength to complete needed tasks. This can be referred to as postural disorder, low tone, and poor core strength.
These individuals need help more than others and can be seen as lazy at times. They have difficulty keeping up. They're more emotional or complain more often than others, but they can also be very funny and engage in 'silly' movements – dancing, laughing, etc. This represents that swing from low and slow to up and going, as mentioned above. They can fear things that are not typical for their age and often do not feel brave enough to separate from others to do for themselves. They tend to be a 'watcher' rather than an active participant, taking a sedentary role in activities.
More details:
Your Sensory Emotional Personality Style is {result rank #1 percent} {result rank #1 title}, but additional Sensory Emotional Personality Styles include:
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To learn more about Sensory Emotional Personalities, visit the link below.
When individuals with this Sensory Emotional Personality find their strengths in intentionality and passion, they can be organized and persistent around a specific task. They can use self-talk to talk themselves through how to do activities to find success. They are leaders and organizers, taking control of situations. They are highly social, presenting as wooing those around them with charm and wit.
Individuals who are scattered yet intentional and passionate often have difficulty coming up with ideas, planning the sequences of action needed to do an activity, executing actions, and/or adapting action plans (particularly when things do not go as expected or when there is a change to a plan). They have difficulty making quick adaptations in the moment, which leads to challenges in transitions and following multi-step directions. This often leads to difficulty interacting with others - particularly when others have their own ideas or agendas. When this causes significant challenges in daily life, it can be called Dyspraxia.
Since it is difficult for these individuals to plan and execute their ideas or things that others are asking them to do, they can look very scattered in their approach, are often frustrated, and can give up when things get difficult. They can tend toward perfectionism or be unmotivated to try things that don't come quickly on the first try. They can have a decreased sense of confidence. On the other hand, they can be overly persistent with their own idea (even when it's unsuccessful). They can enter activities saying things like "I got this" or "This is easy." Sometimes, this is helpful to them, and other times, it results in an even bigger emotional reaction when they are not successful with that task.
Intentional and passionate individuals can move from one thing to another in a scattered-looking way or seemingly seek sensory input. They can resort to big movements, purposeful swaying, bumping, pacing, tapping, and other movement-type actions as they struggle to plan and/or execute multi-step activities smoothly. This can look like seeking input for fun, or it can present as explosive and frustrated actions. These individuals can be very good at practiced motor skills - such as catching, kicking, throwing, etc. - and then fall apart when asked to participate in a novel activity, particularly when asked to do tasks initiated by others. They can also have difficulty with all motor skills.
Intentionally and passionate individuals often use their strengths to overcome their weaknesses in ideation, motor planning, and adaptation. Their strengths are intentionality and passion for what they can do. They can talk around a task provided to them until they find a way to do it in a way that they can do it. They can intentionally request familiar things (foods and clothes included). They passionately engage in a few preferred leisure ideas and activities (activities that they are successful with!). They intentionally become the directors of their world - telling others how to do things, how to solve a problem, and in which order to complete tasks. They intentionally excuse themselves from novel experiences - responding, "I don't know" when asked what they would like to do, saying "no thanks" or "I don't like that" when offered to participate in a new activity or on the more common side of things walking (or running away) when something new occurs in social interactions, particularly when it is unexpected.
More details:
Your Sensory Emotional Personality Style is {result rank #1 percent} {result rank #1 title}, but additional Sensory Emotional Personality Styles include:
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To learn more about Sensory Emotional Personalities, visit the link below.