Which term is included as a component of Dunn’s framework?

• A. Habituation
• B. Attention
• C. Memory
• D. Language

Answer: (A)

Habituation is included because Dunn’s sensory processing framework looks at how a child’s nervous system modulates responses to sensory input as stimuli become familiar. Habituation captures the automatic reduction in arousal to repetitive, non-threatening stimuli, which helps a child allocate attention to new or meaningful information. This process supports adaptive regulation within the framework’s two dimensions—neurological thresholds and self-regulation strategy—allowing the child to engage more effectively with the environment over time.

For example, a child in a classroom may startle at the hum of lights, but with habituation, the response diminishes as the stimulus becomes predictable, freeing energy for learning. When habituation is less efficient, a child may stay heightened to ordinary inputs, leading to distraction or distress and influencing whether they tend toward sensory avoidance or heightened sensitivity.

In practice, recognizing habituation as part of the framework guides assessment and intervention, with strategies that gradually expose a child to sensory input, support routines, and use sensory modulation to promote adaptive habituation. While attention, memory, and language are important developmental domains, they are not the specific constructs of Dunn’s framework, which centers on how sensory information is detected, modulated, and organized through thresholds and regulation, with habituation as a key process within that system.