What Helps?

SENSORY TOYS

Why use Sensory Toys?

Sensory toys are meant to calm, focus, and relax a particular scenario or event. Having sensory toys acts as a way to distract children from an environment or setting that might be causing them to spin or be in pain. For example, listening to the sound of a rain stick might help a child to focus less on an environment that has too loud of music that causes the child stress. Unlike traditional toys that look relatively the same, sensory toys come in different shapes, sizes, and have different features. These different features serve to stimulate different parts of a children’s brain, which is extremely helpful for special needs children.

LITERATURE

There are many pieces of literature such as books and academic journals that act as good resources. Understanding the biology and medical reasoning behind SPD acts as a helpful foundation when living with someone with SPD. Alongside these reasons, following the journey of medical personnel and other families having gone through the same journey can provide some possible insight and examples that might assist with living in a SPD environment. Some great resources include:

Raising a Sensory Smart Child by Lindsey Biel and Nancy K. Peske
Sensational Kids by Lucy Jane Miller
The-Out-of-Sync Child by Carol Stock Kranowitz, among others.

SENSORY INTEGRATION THERAPY

Sensory integration therapy aims to help stimulate patients in a sensory controlled environment by an occupational therapist. The purpose of this type of therapy is so that, in time, the patients will be able to adapt to those types of environments and will then be able to process other stimuli and react more efficiently. Sensory integration therapy isn’t necessarily completely confined to a professional setting. Sensory sensitive environments can be set up in highly stressful areas such as classrooms and workplace settings. These environments can include noise cancelling headphones/ glass, furniture made from different materials, fidget toys, etc.

SENSORY DIETS

Sensory diets can include two different things: diet in the sense of food and the input for a SPD patient.

FOOD DIET

When you think about smell, taste, touch/texture, sound, eating can be a richly sensory stimulating experience. Keeping this in mind, food can impact over stimulation or help with sensory seeking. It can be a challenge to find the right diet for each individual. Someone who has a hypersensitive response to new experiences, might prefer a plain diet, devoid of many colors, smells and tastes. Consider bland foods, such as pasta and bread. Someone who requires high sensory input does well with crunchy, spicy and more tactile foods. In these instances, things such as carrot sticks, drinking through straws, offering finger foods and adding spice can be effective. Oftentimes, no matter where on the spectrum someone sits, having them be intimately involved in how their food is made also helps. Have them be part of the process, allowing them to explore, modify, and control as they go along within their comfort level. It is an experiment, learn and adapt process that hopefully results in comfortable, healthy eating habits.

PHYSICAL DIET

A sensory diet could include a predetermined set of mobility based or calming exercises that follow a set schedule for someone with SPD. A basic example could be: when I am feeling jittery, I will do five jumping jacks. This type of diet is meant to help a child (or an adult) when they are in an uncontrolled environment such as a classroom or workplace. The making of their sensory diet usually coincides with the routine of their school or work day so that they have some consistency which acts as a foundation to help them process the rest of their day more effectively. Sensory diets help to distract from or remove a SPD patient from an over-stimulating situation. These diets can also be time based, such as: after reading time I go put on my hug vest (weighted vest).

MEDICATION

Medication for SPD is a tricky area to navigate, since there is currently no medication for SPD. One of the most common mistakes for parents to make in early childhood is the misdiagnosis of SPD. Since SPD presents itself very similarly to ADHD, lots of doctors and parents turn to medication to help their children. The easiest way to diagnose SPD through this method is to see if the medication is working. If the medication prescribed has no effect on the child, then they have SPD and not ADHD. ADHD is a hormonal imbalance that causes the visible motions that are associated with it, while SPD is in the makeup of the brain and not so easily remedied. In order to avoid unnecessary medication and potential side effects, parents can take the harder path to go through the earliest stages of child development and find what works for their child. As the children grow older and are more responsive to their own body, they will be able to self identify and regulate when something over-stimulates them. The trial-and-error through the early stages will help those children to know what helps them when they are able to recognize that they are uncomfortable.

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