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Sensory Sensitivities: What Can I Do?

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What is Sensory Processing Disorder?

Sensory processing disorder occurs when a child (or adult) experiences more than one significant sensory sensitivity that interferes with everyday life. One’s body must first register the arrival of new sensory stimuli in order to process and respond to it. Some kids have poor registration, meaning they have difficulty recognizing and attending to new sensory stimuli; other kids might have high registration, meaning they feel constantly bombarded by stimuli, even those that are insignificant to a typical person in their environment. Your child might also display sensory seeking or sensory avoidant behaviors in response to their differences in processing. It is important to remember that symptoms and behaviors may be inconsistent, with varying triggers, intensity, and frequency.

Sensory Avoidant Children

The many types of sensory stimuli typically elicit a calming or arousing response. When faced with an extremely arousing, alarming type of stimuli, our body’s fight or flight system can be activated. This leads to behaviors including, but not limited to, running away, yelling or crying, physical aggression, or self-injurious behaviors. Kids who experience sensitivities to certain types of stimuli typically exhibit avoidance behaviors towards the sources of this stimuli. It is possible to desensitize children’s experiences with certain sensory stimuli; however, this process should be designed and monitored by a licensed Occupational Therapist.

Sensory avoidant behaviors might include:

  • Difficulty with washing or brushing hair
  • Difficulty with tolerating hair cuts
  • Difficulty with brushing teeth
  • Difficulty with trimming nails
  • Upset by unexpected touch
  • Difficulty adjusting or tolerating being in a loud, crowded environment
  • Prefers solo play
  • Prefers stationary activities – avoids running, climbing, jumping, etc.
  • Gagging or other extreme response to certain food smells or textures

What is Sensory Integration?

Sensory integration refers to how your body recognizes, processes, and responds to information received by our sensory systems on an individual and combined level. This includes our traditional 5 senses, sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing; however, we also have proprioceptive and vestibular sensory systems.

SENSORY SYSTEMS:

  • Proprioception is our ability to sense the location, positioning, and movements of our body and its limbs. It allows us to navigate a crowded area without bumping into people and furniture in our path.
  • Vestibular sensation is housed in our inner ears and uses gravity to sense spatial orientation and movement. This system is responsible for maintaining balance during movement. If you or child is a victim of motion sickness, you have the vestibular system to blame!
  • Touch, or tactile sensation, comes from receptors in our skin found all over the body. Tactile sensation includes sensations of pain, temperature, pressure, and textures.
  • Taste 
  • Smell
  • Sight
  • Hearing

Understanding Sensory Overload & What You Can Do

Maintain a positive mindset: 

  • Move at your child’s pace. Never force a sensory experience on them. This will lead to broken trust – Remember that your child is experiencing these stimuli as an attack to their state of wellbeing and you are there to support and encourage them.
  • Start slow – simply tolerating being near aversive sensory stimuli is something to celebrate!
  • Give your child aspects of the situation to control by using conditional choices
    • “Would you like to brush your teeth first or take a bath first?”
    • “Would you like to try the peas or the carrots today?”
    • “Would you like to use the green or the blue finger paint?”
  • Desensitizing your child and creating new habits takes time! Progress can seem slow, but don’t get discouraged.

Activity ideas: 

  • Messy play – mud, dirt, water, food play, finger paints, shaving cream, bath bubbles, etc.
  • Noise cancelling headphones or ear plugs
  • Window shades or adjustable lights
  • Include your child in meal preparation process – encourage them to help whether with their hands or using cooking utensils to interact with the many food textures and smells
  • Food play – This is crucial when trying to expand your child’s diet. Encourage your child to interact with new foods in the most basic manner; the SOS Feeding Approach, used commonly by Occupational Therapists, encourages the following progression with new foods: See –> Touch –> Kiss –> Lick –> Taste –> Chew & Swallow. It is important to allow your child to move at their own pace and allow them to clean off hands or spit out food at any point along the continuum.
  • Sensory toys – Check out Ark Therapeutic, a leading manufacturer of innovative therapy tools and special needs products! They have great sensory toys, chews and fidgets that can help your child deal with sensory overload.
  • Finger painting – also try bathtub paint to reduce mess and give child control over cleaning off their hands
  • Listening to music

Check out this video of our AMAZING Occupational Therapist, Kelly, helping a child overcome a sensory fear.

How can Carolina Therapy Connection Help?

At Carolina Therapy Connection, we offer Sensory Integration Therapy and play-based treatment intervention that is specifically designed to stimulate and challenge all of the senses. Sensory Integration involves specific sensory activities (swinging, bouncing, brushing, and more) that are intended to help your child regulate his or her response to incoming sensory input. The outcome of these activities may be better focus and attention, improved behavior, and even lowered anxiety. Our therapists may work on  lowering a patient’s negative reactions to touch, help them become better aware of their body in space, and work on their ability to manage their bodies more appropriately (run and jump when it’s time to run and jump, sit and focus when it’s time to sit and focus, etc.). Various techniques include swinging, deep pressure therapy, which may include squeezing, rolling, etc., jumping on a trampoline, or gross motor play such as wall climbing, balance beam, etc.

Carolina Therapy Connection now has the largest and most state-of-the-art sensory gym in all of Eastern North Carolina!  Check out our 360° view of our sensory gym HERE. Our sensory gym is fully equipped with a zip-line, monkey bars, slides, scooter board ramps, ball pit, trampolines, rock climbing wall, and an expansive set of swings to offer a wide-variety of sensory experiences for each child.

If you have any questions or would like to schedule a screening for your child, call our clinic at (252) 341-9944 to learn more about what you can do and how we can help!

 

 

Sensory Sensitivities

Alphabet Scavenger Hunt Activity at Home

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Alphabet Scavenger Hunt Activity at Home

Try this fun activity at home with your child- it can be adjusted for any age!

Instructions for the activity:

  • Make alphabet flash cards for your child to pick from
  • Have your child find something inside or outside that begins with that letter
  • Encourage your child to say the letter and the object
  • Talk about what the object does or how it is used
  • Have them write it out for extra practice!

How will this activity help my child succeed?

  • The alphabet scavenger hunt will help your child experience meaningful, hands-on alphabet practice
  • It integrates real-world identification with letters and sounds
  • This activity can provide necessary social interaction skills and even be made into a friendly competition with other children

We want to see your scavenger hunts.. tag us in your pics on social media!

 

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Scavenger hunt

Sensory Walk Activity to do at Home!

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Home with your kiddos and need some sensory suggestions?

 

This is a sensory walk that you can easily create at home with chalk and other materials (bins filled with rice, beans, dirt, sand, etc.).  This helps to promote balance, coordination, and following directions.  Try it at home and show us how you created your very own sensory walk!

sensory walk

Speech and Language Development

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Speech and Language Development

All children have speech variations during their early language development. Perhaps your child switches different consonants or still mixes words with baby talk. All of these things are normal to a certain age. Some children grow out of these practices or figure out articulation once they have learned to read and see how things are spelled. Many parents wonder is this normal for a child their age, or is there a problem? And if so, what should they do?

Is This Normal?

“Parents should be able to understand at least 50% of what a toddler is saying by their second birthday. By age three, parents should understand most (90%) of what a child is saying. By age four, strangers should understand most (90%) of what a child is saying,” says Laura Mize, a pediatric speech-language pathologist in her blog, Teach Me to Talk.

Thankfully, there are developmental milestones that can help determine if your child needs help with articulation. Teach Me to Talk has a list of first targets for speech intelligibility in toddlers.

What Do I Look For?

The first question to ask yourself is Is my child using the correct number of syllables in a word? 

Even if your child is not saying words perfectly, look for the correct use of syllables. This helps with determining what word they are trying to say, and helps differentiate from other words that may have similar sounds. If your child is having trouble with this, try clapping out syllables to help them hear the difference. This will help with communication before they use full sentences.

Next, Is my child using correct vowel sounds in words? 

If your child has an issue with dropping particular vowels, you can introduce those sounds in play. Using troublesome vowels as sound effects while playing helps your child become familiar with a sound that is difficult for them.

Can my child use two different vowel sounds in words, or does he always copy the first sound for the next syllable?

When a child is learning to speak, repeating vowels, such as “baba” for bottle, are used to simplify words. However, some children do not grow out of this stage, and therefore need help learning how to change the second vowel.

The next question to ask is, Is my child learning consonant sounds in the beginnings of words and syllables? 

Omitting beginning consonant sounds make if very hard to understand what a child is saying, especially when many words are strung together in a full sentence. Speech therapy is a wonderful tool to help a child develop those missing sounds.

And lastly, Is my child using ending consonant sounds? 

Dropping endings, lisping, and ending in vowel sounds instead of the desired consonant are some of the most common reasons for speech therapy. There are many tips and tricks to help a child learn and be aware of those ending sounds.

What Is The Next Step?

If you notice your child is not reaching these milestones, there are options! Speech therapy is a wonderful tool that not only helps your child with their speech, but it also helps with communication, comprehension, social skills, expanding vocabulary, articulation, and many other areas. If your child is in need of therapy, it is best to begin as soon as possible. Children enrolled in therapy early (before they’re 5 years old) tend to have better outcomes than those who begin therapy later. Older kids may progress at a slower rate, because they often have learned patterns that need to be changed.

ASHA describes articulation disorders as the difficulty of producing sounds in syllables or saying words incorrectly to the point that listeners can’t understand what’s being said.

Mommy Speech Therapy gives a great overview of the process of articulation therapy. “First practice the sound in isolation, then in syllables, words, sentences, stories, conversation and finally generalizing the target sound in all contexts of language.”

Where Should My Child Go?

There are various approaches to articulation therapy. Our speech therapists here at Carolina Therapy Connection are specialized in articulation therapy, and each session is designed with your child’s specific needs in mind. They physically show the child how to make certain sounds, and may demonstrate how to move the tongue to produce specific sounds. Not only do our therapists work with your child, but they work with you as a parent to enhance learning in the home.

One of the many strengths of Carolina Therapy Connection is the multi-disciplined aspect of our clinic. Some children with speech needs only need speech therapy, but often, children have a need for other therapy as well. We offer speech therapy, feeding therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and educational assessments. Our therapists are trained to notice any other needs for children they treat, and can help determine if an evaluation is needed. Our focus is the wellness of the child. All of our therapists work together to insure they are receiving all the help they need to reach their highest potential!

speech therapy for kids