Avoiding Sharp Sensations
As with touch and sound and sight, if your child is oversensitive to information from his sense of taste or smell, he will have big reactions to strong sensations. Food that is intensely flavorful may overwhelm his sensory system and make him feel upset or frightened. Strong smells may be impossible to ignore, and they may keep him from being able to concentrate on anything else.
If your child strongly resists going to a particular place or has a strong negative reaction to a particular person, consider whether smell might be a factor. A heavy air freshener or powerful perfume might make a place distracting and unpleasant for her overstimulated nose. Your child may resort to disruptive behavior in an effort to be removed from an environment that has strongly unpleasant smells. Even good smells can be a problem if they cause your child to be distracted and to think of nothing else.
Although you may assume that things you can see will be remembered most, memories associated with smell are actually the longest lasting. They also carry with them not just factual representations of events, but the emotions that went along with them. You may find that certain smells bring back more vivid memories of childhood than anything else.
