Introduction:
A problem in the capacity to regulate and organize the degree, intensity and nature of response to sensory input in a graded and adaptive manner…[that] disrupts an individual’s capacity to achieve and maintain an optimal range of performance necessary to adapt to challenges of life.
May result in:
• Decreased social skills and participation in play
• Poor self-confidence and self-esteem
• Difficulties in daily life skills and at school
• Anxiety, poor attention and poor ability to regulate reactions to others
• Poor skills development in fine, gross, and sensory motor domains
• Child may function primarily at one end of the continuum (under-reactive and under responsive or over-reactive and over-responsive)
• Child may also have a problem with sensory registration- not perceiving sensory information at all.
Classic Sensory Integrative Treatment
• Individual – one on one
• Follows inner drive of child
• Active participation (a must)
• Balances freedom and therapist’s guidance
• Creates an environment that elicits increasingly more complex adaptive responses
Sensory Diet goals
- Provide the right amount of sensory input to keep an optimum level of arousal and performance
- Provide consistent and intensive sensory input to change sensory processing capacities
Duration of Effects of Sensory Input
- Vestibular – 4 to 8 hours
- Wilbarger Program (deep touch pressure and joint approximation) 1-2 hours
- Whole body actions, joint traction or co contraction, heavy work – 2 hours
- Visual & auditory – can change state (calm or excite), elicit emotional responses, and tap into memory systems, but generally not long lasting
- Suck-swallow-breathe activities.