RICHIE MCFARLAND CHILDREN’S CENTER

11 Sandy Point Road

Stratham, NH  03885

(603) 778-8193

www.richiemcfarland.org          

Sensory Integration

 

Countless sensations flow into our brains constantly.  Everything we hear, see, taste, smell and feel is captured and organized by the brain.  The brain uses the sensations to form perceptions, behaviors and learning.

 

Sensory integration is the ability to take in information through the senses and put it together with prior information, memories and knowledge stored in the brain, and to make a meaningful response.

 

Sensory integration begins in the womb and develops somewhat predictably through childhood.  Although every child is born with the capacity to integrate sensations, giving children opportunities to experience many things in the world is essential to healthy development.

 

How the brain processes sensory input can be compared to traffic in a large city, according to A. Jean Ayres, Ph.D., with the Brain Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.

 

Dr. Ayres states, "Good sensory processing enables all the impulses to flow easily and reach their destination quickly.  Sensory integrative dysfunction is sort of a "traffic jam" in the brain.  Some bits of sensory information get 'tied up in traffic,' and certain parts of the brain do not get the sensory information they need to do their jobs.

 

In a newsletter published by Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (www.tsbvi.edu), sensory integrative difficulties are described in four major categories with some of the typical behaviors. It is important to note that the following behaviors or characteristics could be caused by something other than sensory integrative dysfunction.

 

Attention and Regulatory

 

¨ Distractible, hyperactive, uninhibited behavior.

¨ Unresponsive to certain stimuli such as their name being called.

¨ An acute awareness of background noises.

¨ Unable to establish appropriate sleeping and eating patterns.

¨ Unable to calm or console themselves.

 

 

Hypo or Hyper Sensitivity

 

¨ Aggressiveness, avoidance, withdrawal and intolerance of daily routines.

¨ Intolerance of combing or shampooing hair, cutting fingernails or brushing teeth.

¨ Insistence on certain textures of clothing and cutting out clothing tags.

¨ Extremely limited choices of food.

¨ Fearful of certain sounds, such as household appliances.

¨ Hypersensitivity to light or avoidance of gaze.

¨ Intolerance to odors.

¨ Intolerance to movement (motion sickness) or unstable surfaces.

 

Activity Levels

 

¨ Disorganized and lacking purpose in activities.

¨ Inability to move around and explore the environment.

¨ Lack of variety in play activities.

¨ Clumsy, trips easily and has poor balance.

¨ Difficulty calming themselves after physical activity or becoming upset.

¨ Seeks excessive amounts of vigorous sensory input.

 

 Providing infants with numerous and varied stimuli will promote healthy development of sensory integration.  Enable infants to experience different textures--crawling around in sand, grass and shallow water. Provide toys with a variety of textures such as smooth, coarse and fuzzy as well as toys that make sounds.  Create opportunities for movement and a variety of positions. Provide a safe environment that allows your infant to explore and meet the challenges of their world.

 

The Sensory Integration Network website (www.sinetwork.org) describes various activities for toddlers that provide practice of taking in, sorting out and organizing sensory information.

 

 

¨ Finger-painting with sand or other gritty, grainy substance added for texture.

¨ Make "texture cards" by cutting pieces of cardboard and cover these cards in pairs, with cotton, corduroy, terry cloth, wool, sandpaper, fur, or Polar Fleece (whatever you have on hand with texture). Then the child matches like pairs. This can be modified in many ways, by placing one of the pair of cards in bag and having the other match on the table or by having both matches of several different pairs in the bag at once.

¨ Use a large plastic tub filled with Cheerios, uncooked rice, snow, small beans,   flour, popcorn kernels, small pasta, uncooked Cream of Wheat, sand or small plastic beads. (Be watchful of children putting small items into their mouths.) The child pours, scoops and searches for objects, toys or shapes within the rice, Cheerios (or other substance).

¨ Try drawing on different textures, like sandpaper or corrugated cardboard and try using different materials to draw with, such as chalk, charcoal, pastels, pencils, etc.

¨ Sand and water play are also great sensory activities, try filling a shallow basin with sand, tiny pebbles and large, bumpy stones.

¨ Finger painting with pudding, whipped cream, shaving cream (make sure it isn't eaten), yogurt and/or chocolate syrup. If your child is not allergic to them, food colorings are fun to add to the whipped cream or shaving cream.  Plant misters (spray bottles) filled with water and food coloring can be used by children to spray whipped cream.

¨ Hide objects in play dough to be searched out by the child.

 

For more information on sensory integration and other child development issues, contact your health care provider or the Family Resource Connection located in Concord at the state library, at 800-298-4321 or www.state.nh.us/nhsl/frc. 

- Published by Seacoast Newspapers, 2002