Sensory Integration
What is Sensory Integration?
**Please note that this area is NOT complete, as sensory integration and sensory processing are complex areas of learning. This will provide you with come quick explanations, but you should contact your school occupational therapist for specifics in this learning area.
Sensory and motor interaction provides for the foundation for a child’s growth, development and learning within the world around them. Sensory stimulation/feedback and motor go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. The motor system drives the sensory stimulation and sensory stimulation/feedback drives the brain. It is critical for these skills to improve and develop to aid in behavior and academic learning. Often times, children struggling with learning or behavior have inadequately developed sensory and motor systems.
Sensory Skills:
Sensory skills involve using these senses of smell, touch, vision, hearing, balance, proprioception (awareness to know where your body is in space), vestibular (inner ear), and taste. All these senses work together for overall sensory functioning.
Motor Skills:
Motor skills include coordination of both sides of the body (bilateral coordination), muscle strength and tone, gross and fine motor skills, vestibular balance and posture, visual tracking and coordination, rhythm and timing, and dominance.
Self Regulation:
Self-regulation is the ability to manage your emotions and behavior in accordance with the demands of the situation. It is a set of skills that enables children, as they mature, to direct their own behavior towards a goal, despite the unpredictability of the world and our own feelings. Movement breaks are great for children and adults alike!
Check out the resources and videos listed below:
Sensory Integration Ideas: OT Mom
An Overview of Sensory Processing Disorder: OT Mom
Hundreds of Indoor Activities for Kids Under 5: Hands on as we Grow
Adapted Physical Education by Heidi Renner, C.A.P.E Specialist - KPBSD Specialist with MOVEMENT ideas!
Check out the videos below to come up with ideas for movement/sensory breaks when completing school work from home.
