The Essential Sensory Integration Guide

The Essential Sensory Integration Guide

For today's blog I was going to focus on children with sensory needs and how we can try to best meet their needs. I believe that sensory issues are becoming more and more prevalent(maybe just better recognized) in the teaching world and it is important to address these issues so that the student is better able to learn and develop. I will take you through each of the 6 sensory systems and activities that can be utilized to meet these needs.

What is a sensory need?

Sensory needs were best explained to me by Temple Grandin, a leader in the Autism field, at a conference I attended about two years ago. She said something along the lines of  "Sensory needs are like having a cup(this symbolizes our sensory need) that needs to be filled with water(this symbolizes the sensory stimulation). We all have a cup, but some of us have different sized cups. If you have a large cup(hypo sensitive) than you need a great deal more water than most people to fulfill your needs. If you have a small cup than you only need a little bit to fulfill your need and it is easy to overfill this cup and make you feel overwhelmed. There are different sized cups for each one of our sensory systems and not all of them are the same size either. So where as my cup for taking in auditory input may be very large and I need a lot of water to fill it, my tactile(sense of touch) cup may be very small and I don't need much water at all to fill it." I believe that this paraphrase helps one understand sensory processing disorder(SPD) a little better.

Here is a picture that I hope represents the idea as well:

The Different Types of Sensory Needs

Sensory issues can manifest themselves in a variety of ways. They can appear to be behavioral, panic attacks, attention deficits, or they can cause a student to struggle to interact with others. But I have witnessed on many different occasions how these concerns can be greatly reduced through sensory integration activities.

For example, when I was finishing up my student teaching I was placed in an elementary ASD program. I had a student who was extremely bright and was doing academic work that was years above his grade level. But at the same time this student would avoid any peer interactions and would rather focus his attention on playing an Ipad(visual stimulation) or bouncing on a hippy hop ball(vestibular). For an end of the year field trip we went to a local swimming pool. Once this student was in the pool he was a totally different child. He was intiating play with his peers and playing appropriately. Because of the tremendous amount of sensory input that swimming gives to our system he was able to not feel overwhelmed and able to interact with his peers in a meaningful way.

With sensory processing disorder there is a large variety of different needs. Some children are hypo-sensitive and crave extra stimulation. Others are hyper-sensitive and just a little of a certain stimulation can be quite overwhelming. Here is a list of the different unique sensory needs that a child may crave or be quickly overstimulated by:

• Auditory 
• Visual 
• Gustation(Taste)
• Olfactory(Smell)
• Vestibular(Balance)
• Tactile(Touch)
• Proprioception/Kinesthetic(Body Awareness)*

*The Proprioception and Kinesthetic sensory systems are not the same but are frequently lumped together. Visit this site to read about the differences. Proprioception Wiki

How to Address Sensory Needs

Here is a Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs picture for students that I created:

I really wanted to focus on the physiological needs of the students for this blog. It is a well accepted fact that if a student is not fed, is homeless, sick, or lacking sleep they will not be able to function very well in school and it is vital that those needs are addressed so that the student is able to learn and grow to their best potential. The same goes with addressing sensory needs. A student with SPD has a biological need and we as educators have to try to address them.

When thinking about activities that help integrate sensory input to include in your day remember that many of these different categories cross over. Such as dancing activities can help a child's auditory, visual, tactile, vestibular, and propriceptive systems.

Depending on if the student is hypo or hyper sensitive is how the activity is done. Changing the force or speed of an activity may be appropriate to address whether they have hyper or hypo sensitive sensory input system. For example, a student whom has a vestibular hypo sensitivity may need to be slowly rolled on a large hoppity ball, where as a child whom has a vestibular hyper sensitivity may need to do the same activity at a faster rate.

Sensory Integration Activities

Here are is a list of the sensory need and different activities that can be utilized to best meet the child's unique needs:

Tactile: Any water activities, arts and crafts activities with tactile objects like putty and finger paint, massage, bare foot activities, dance, and crawling through tunnels. This is the child that will benefit from creating things with their hands and using manipulatives for math. It may be helpful for this child to differentiate between objects through using their sense of touch. This child may be more successful in class if they are able to use a fidget toy during class.

Visual: object manipulation activities like baseball or tennis where the game or objects can be modified, this may be done through changing objects colors or size, and/or it can be done through modifying the games speed or distances.  Other activities that would promote visual  sensory integration include tracking, sorting objects, and scavenger hunts where a student has to find different objects. Make sure that with these students, whatever you are trying to draw their attention towards is bright, colorful and visually stimulating. 

Auditory: Activities like goal ball that strongly use auditory recognition, localization and discrimination, activities that depend on student's auditory memory, activities where students create their own sound effects(for example creating a radio show). Other ideas that may help auditory sensory integration are music therapy headphones during class work, headphones or ear plugs to reduce noise, and the removal of or placement of cork boards on the walls that will enhance echoes.

Vestibular: Any activity that includes spinning, log rolls, balancing, jumping on trampolines, scooters, tumbling or swinging. A great way to promote vestibular integration is through using hippy hop balls as seats. 

Proprioceptive: Activities that involve naming body parts, movement activities done in front of a mirror, juggling, yoga stances and imitation of movements. These students will excel in work where they are constantly moving. Using theaters and charades in the classroom/gym are great ways to help these students be successful. A student who would benefit from propriceptive sensory integration may also benefit from frequent breaks.

*For this blog I am not going to cover activities for sensory integration for taste and smell.

For more information on how SPD can affect how a person with SPD communicates with the outside world here is this very moving and inspirational youtube video titled "In My Language"

Quote of the day:

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

-Carl Jung