What is Sensory Integration
At Leaps and Bounds Occupational Therapy we have a large therapy room dedicated to sensory integration. Every day, children receive lots of information from their senses, including their sense of smell, touch, taste, movement, body position and motor planning. There are many parts of a child’s brain and nervous system that work together to interpret and organise this information. A child will then act on this information in an organised way. This is called sensory integration.
Sensory integration usually develops through normal childhood experiences. For some children this does not occur like it should and they experience problems integrating information from all of their senses. This may affect their ability to understand and process information and will impact upon thoughts, feelings, emotions, behaviour, learning and development.
Some children may have trouble interpreting sounds with their ears; others may have problems processing information relating to movement or touch. The following signs may indicate trouble processing sensory information:
- Over sensitivity to touch, movement, sights or sounds
- Avoidance of specific tasks such as finger painting or running through a busy playground
- Intense sensory seeking that is not easily satisfied such as a child may continually seek out big, heavy crashing movements and rough and tumble play with peers
- Unusually high or low activity level or one that changes between extremes
- Problems with coordinating movements and appearing ‘clumsy’
- Poorly organised behaviour. These may be accompanied by delays in speech, language or academic achievement.
The dedicated sensory integration room and the team at Leaps and Bounds can help your child with any of these problems.