N.E.W. REHAB Company
Providing Speech, Physical and Occupational Therapy to North-Eastern
Sensory Integration
What is Sensory Integration and how does it develop?
Integration is what turns an individual’s sensations into their perceptions. We perceive our bodies, other people, and objects because our brain has organized our sensory experiences into meaningful forms and relationships. Sensory integration begins as a fetus develops the neural network between the body and the brain.
Sensory system continues to develop through all the developmental milestones of childhood so that children may learn to play, crawl, walk, feed and dress themselves and communicate with others. During play a child is developing their sensory system. Integration is occurring as the child organizes the sensations of his body in relationship to gravity, sight and sound. A child who learns to organize his play is more likely to organize his school work and become an organized adult.
Until about seven years old, the brain is primarily a sensory processing machine. Young children do not have many abstract thoughts or ideas about things; they are concerned mainly with sensing them and moving their body in relationship to those sensations.
How does sensory integration work?
When the child is able to effectively process and organize sensory information the response is called an adaptive response. When the child experiences challenges to which he can respond effectively, he is "having fun", the child is not frustrated or unable to handle their daily routine. In some respects, "fun" is a child's word for sensory integration.
What happens when sensory integration is impaired?
When the brain is unable to or has difficulty interpreting and processing incoming sensory information this will cause them to be slow learners or to have behavioral problems. Children may be delayed in reaching their motor milestones such as rolling, crawling, and walking. These children may not play, interact or have fun as they other children around them are. These children often are delayed in developing their language skills.
Sensory processing difficulties at times are subtle and not noticed until a child attends school. Children have a lot of expectations to meet while in school. They must learn new things, get along with peers and teachers, dress themselves, change from one task to another, pay attention with a room full of distractions, and remember multi-step commands.
A child with sensory processing difficulties is often overwhelmed by a busy classroom environment. The child's brain may respond to the overwhelming amount of information with a lot of excess activity that is attempting to balance the brain's confusion, or a decreased level of activity that is trying to shut out the confusing stimuli. Every child with poor sensory processing shows a different set of symptoms.
What is sensory integration therapy?
Sensory integration therapy teaches the child to use many connections in the brain at the same time. This is achieved by presenting the child with a combination of sensory stimuli (tactile, vestibular, proprioceptive, gustatory, visual, and olfactory) that is appropriate to the child's developmental level. It emphasizes the connections in the brain stem, where many types of sensations come together.
This stimulation is one of the things that normal play provides the average child. Children must learn to receive the proper information from the senses and process the information received for further use.
Children with sensory processing difficulties rarely give themselves the proper stimulation on their own. Therefore, therapy provides an opportunity for the child to participate in guided play that will help the brain work better. Therapists utilize a play format to engage the child so that the therapy will be maximally effective. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to make therapy look casual, but both the child and the therapist are actually working very hard. All the activities are purposeful and directed toward a goal. Therapy is not designed to learn specific skills, but to learn how to organize the brain so that it will work better. This organization can be used by the child to learn specific skills. The ultimate goal of sensory integration therapy is self-development and/or self-organization.
How does N.E.W. REHAB Company develop a custom plan for a child?
Areas that are evaluated when developing an individualized treatment plan for a child include the following:
How the child responds to tactile experiences.
- Does the child avoid tactile experiences?
- Does the child like or dislike certain clothing?
- Does the child have difficulty being next to others?
- Does the child have adverse reactions to touch?
How the child responds to taste or smells.
- Is the child a particular eater?
- Does the child avoid certain types of food?
- Does the child limit their choices to certain textures?
How the child responds to movement.
- Does the child dislike when their feet leave the ground?
- Does the child dislike doing activities where their head is turned upside down?
- Does the child seek out movement activity to where it interferes with their daily routine?
How the child responds to auditory stimuli.
- Does the child have difficulty functioning in a noisy environment?
- Does the child respond to their name being called even though they may not have hearing problems?
- Does the child have a short attention span and difficulty paying attention?
How the child functions.
- Does the child appear to have weak muscles?
- Does the child tire easily and prop self to hold one self up right?
- Does the child have poor endurance?
These are just a few questions to ask yourself if you suspect that your child may have a sensory processing disorder. If you feel that your child does have difficulty please call and set up an appointment for further evaluation.
Our occupational therapists at N.E.W. REHAB Company are trained in the use of Sensory Integration and have been working with clients and have had great success. We can help you learn more about the method and whether it might be a good fit for your situation. Contact us to learn more.