- Home |
- Intro |
- What they say |
- What you see |
- What's behind it |
- How we help |
- Next steps |
- Contact us
The Sound Learning Centre
Call us for
a free telephone consultation
020 – 8882 1060
Contact us
Select for quick navigation
Find out the underlying causes of learning, sensory, developmental and
emotional difficulties and what you can do
about it.
Outreach Programmes:
Scotland
Ireland
Middle East
Meet us and learn more about our work.
Our next Open House event in London is on Wednesday 17 September 2008 at 7.30 pm.
Please call us now to reserve your FREE place.
Our next SenseAbility course is on Thursday 25 September 2008.
Our next EASIE course is on Thursday 27 November 2008.
Please call us now to reserve your place.
Read our Newsletters
(in Adobe Reader PDF format)
Winter 2006
Spring/Summer 2006
Autumn 2006
or call us now for a
FREE printed copy.
Job Opportunities
The Sound Learning Centre
Call us for
a free telephone consultation
020 – 8882 1060
Contact us
The Sound Learning Centre
12 The Rise, London N13 5LE, England, tel: +44 (0)20 8882 1060, fax: +44 (0)20 8882 1040
e-mail: info@thesoundlearningcentre.co.uk, website: www.thesoundlearningcentre.co.uk
copyright 1994-2007
"Helping children and adults with learning and sensory difficulties improve their performance"
You are here: Home / Intro / What's behind it / Taste
What's behind it
Taste
“There is not a flower or bird in sight, only a
small screen on which lines are moving, while the child sits almost
motionless, pushing at the keyboard with one finger. As a learning
environment, it may be mentally rich, but it is perceptually extremely
impoverished. No smells or tastes, no wind or bird song (unless the computer
is programmed to produce electronic tweets), no connection with soil, water,
sunlight, warmth, the actual learning environment is almost autistic in
quality, impoverished sensually, emotionally, and socially”
John Davy
We detect taste with taste receptor cells that are located on the tongue. The taste cells are clustered in roughly 10,000 taste buds. Each taste bud has a pore that opens out to the surface of the tongue enabling molecules and ions taken into the mouth to reach the receptor cells inside. A single taste bud contains 50–100 taste cells representing all 5 basic taste sensations, sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Umami is less well known and is the response to salts of “glutamic acid”. Monosodium glutamate (MSG), a flavour enhancer used in many processed foods and in many Asian dishes, is a glutamic acid. Processed meats and cheeses also contain glutamate.
Taste is a multi-billion pound industry – what they want you to eat has little to do with your health
Our sense of taste together with tactile information such as temperature and texture plus our sense of smell will give us our perception of flavour. This will to a great extent determine our eating preferences.
We can be over or under sensitive to certain tastes, or even have a combination of both. It is also important to consider the oral-motor functioning, as poor muscle tone and retained primitive reflexes can play havoc with trying to follow a healthy diet.
There are many different types of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorders and compulsive eating. Each of these disorders has distinct symptoms. Most people assume that the common thread of these disorders is that the person suffering has a problem with food. In reality, eating disorders are not about food, but rather are an unmistakable indicator that the person has underlying emotional difficulties in their life. Tackling the causes of these difficulties is a pre-requisite to solve eating disorders on a long term basis. We have found that sensory difficulties are often a contributing factor to emotional difficulties and have had good success with treating clients with eating disorders. A detailed assessment is an essential first step towards resolving eating disorders.
Eating disorders are not about food
Although it is not easy to retrain our sense of taste, we have found that the intricate link between all five senses can be used to good effect. Retraining our hearing and vision senses will often lead to changes in smell and taste.
Explore further
Other areas on this website to explore in relation to taste are:
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You will find guidance on what to do next in the Next steps section.
We offer a confidential, no obligation, free telephone consultation – simply call us on 020 – 8882 1060.