Sensory Integration

I attended a session at the Upstate Technology Conference in SC on Sensory Integration. The speaker was Kate Beals from the SC Interagency for the Deaf-Blind Project. She is an occupational therapist who was very informative and passionate about her subject. She has a son who deals with sensory issues and understands how difficult this can be for a child.
K. Beals talked about the importance of recognizing the 7 senses: sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, light touch [what we feel on our skin], and deep touch [what we feel in our joints and muscles], head or vestibular sense [the movement and position of the head in space which is sensed in the inner ear]. Children with sensory issues often react negatively to light touch and find relief in deep pressure upon their body which is sensed in deep touch.
She described the central nervous system as sensory in and motor out. We use the 7 senses to learn about our environment. These senses send messages to the brain. The brain sends motor commands out to the body. People who do not have sensory issues are able to focus on the information they need. The brain of someone with sensory problems has trouble filtering out or ignoring excessive stimuli. Being bombarded with the stimuli can agitate a child to the point of inflicting pain on those around him and himself. Beals said a child with sensory issues is only defending themselves against an assault on their senses. If we can minimize the stimulants for these children, we can minimize the resulting negative behavior. Recognizing stimulants that agitate a child and helping the child avoid them or deal with them is crucial.
I found it very interesting when she discussed pain and how to help these children with it. Only one message at a time can flow on the central nervous system to the brain. When a child is experiencing pain from excessive stimuli, deep pressure is often effective in calming the child. The body senses the deep pressure and that message flows to the brain blocking out the pain.
Beals stated that seventy percent of people with learning disabilities have sensory issues. This usually includes children with CHARGE Syndrome, Autism, Aspberger’s Syndrome, and PDD. It can also include children with CP, Down Syndrome, and children who are born prematurely. As teachers, we often have students in our class who are over-responders to stimuli which can result in disruptive behavior or meltdowns. Suggestions for decreasing arousal were predictable routine, quiet environment, deep pressure, firm touch, uncluttered environment, working against resistance-such as carry a box of books, the scents of vanilla or bananas, soft classical music, and responding to the child’s communication attempts.
For more information on this topic Kate Beals welcomes your emails at kbeals@scsdb.org .

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