Tinton Falls Sensory Motor Integration
Empowered Learning Transformation Centers
Pediatric Development Center provides evaluation and treatment services for children with known and suspected learning and/or developmental problems. Our goal is to help children reach their maximum potential in their home and academic environments.
Sensory Integration
Sensory integration is the ability to take in information through our senses (touch, movement, smell, taste, vision and DSC_0504hearing), put it together with prior information, memories, and knowledge stored in the brain, and make a meaningful response. It is a process that is dependent upon the efficient integration of all the sensory experiences mixed with environmental situations and demands and the child’s own personality and reactions. In the normally developing child, sensory integration occurs when the child participates in everyday activities. The child’s love for sensory activities fuels an inner drive and motivation to conquer challenges. That drive urges the child to participate actively in experiences that promote sensory integration. Deficits in sensory integration are likely to impact a child’s gross and fine motor skills, self-help skills, eating, and development of higher level skills.
At Home Activities:
Playing with shaving cream, moon sand, pudding, cool whip, gak and other gooey textures to use with their hand, toys, and other objects.DSC_0198
Wheelbarrow walking throughout the house or outside
Blowing and popping bubbles
Jumping on a trampoline
Swinging
Finger painting
Rolling child up in a blanket or squishing with cushions and pillows to give a deep pressure sensation
Dragging or lifting heavy objects
Playing in bins filled with rice, beans, buttons, sand, popcorn kernels etc.
Animal walks such as crab, bear, snake, frog jumps etc.
Playing on a playground or jungle gym
Tossing/throwing balls with textured surfaces such as bumps and ridgesimage
Going barefoot and walking/playing on different textures/surfaces (grass, pavement, sandpaper, rocks, sand, netting, etc)
Play with food such as cooked pasta, potatoes, condiments, etc.
Yard work (raking, gardening, digging)
Writing/Drawing with chalk
Create sensory balls out of balloons and filled with different things such as flour, rice, beads
Arts and crafts projects
Swimming or playing at the beach
Creating a homemade lava lamp with water, oil and food coloring inside of a clear plastic container.
Sensory Integration:
Simply put, is the ability to take in information through our senses (touch, movement, smell, taste, vision and hearing), put it together with prior information, memories, and knowledge stored in the brain, and make a meaningful response. It is a process that is dependent upon the efficient integration of all the sensory experiences mixed with environmental situations and demands and the child’s own personality and reactions. In the normally developing child, sensory integration occurs when the child participates in everyday activities. The child’s love for sensory activities fuels an inner drive and motivation to conquer challenges. That drive urges the child to participate actively in experiences that promote sensory integration. Deficits in sensory integration are likely to impact a child’s gross and fine motor skills, self-help skills, eating, and development of higher level skills.
Dyspraxia:
Motor planning (praxis) is the ability to spontaneously sequence and organize movements in a coordinated manner to complete unfamiliar motor tasks as with sports. Motor planning can be hampered by poor timing or sequencing of movements or by poor ideation (the instinctive “know how” in approaching a novel motor challenge). Motor planning is necessary for many gross motor tasks (sports or playground skills) as well as for fine motor constructional tasks such as block building or copying designs and letters with a pencil. Motor planning is dependent on adequate processing of sensory stimulation and often when there are deficits in one or more areas of sensory processing, difficulties with praxis result.
Sensory Modulation and Regulation:
Sensory modulation refers to the ability of the nervous system to regulate, organize, and prioritize incoming sensory information, inhibiting irrelevant information and helping the child focus on pertinent information. A well-modulated nervous system adapts to changes in the environment, has a level of arousal and attention appropriate for the task, blocks out irrelevant information, attends to relevant stimulation, and responds appropriately and in direct proportion to the input. Sensory modulation results in appropriate:
Registration
Arousal
Self-regulation
Attention
Focus
Behavior or emotional responses
Sensory Registration:
Sensory registration is the process by which children respond or attend to sensory input in their environments. The nervous system must first notice the sensory information, once registered the memory compares it to things they have heard or seen, and thus gives new information meaning. Children who fail to respond or have delayed responses to sensory information have diminished sensory registration. Diminished sensory registration is often associated with one or two weaker sensory systems, such as the auditory or vestibular system. Without sensory registration, no other learning can take place.
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