Incorporating Sensory Input into Daily Activities

A couple of weeks ago I got a sheet from our Occupational Therapist (who will be coming on board soon) about how to incorporate sensory input into your child's daily activities. I think they're great ideas so I wanted to share them with you.

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BATH TIME: Scrub with washcloth or bath brush, try a variety of soaps and lotions for bathing, play on the wall with shaving cream or bathing foam, rub body with lotion after bath time (deep massage), sprinkle powder onto body and brush or rub into skin.

MEAL PREPARATION OR BAKING: Let your child mix ingredients, especially the thick ones that will really work those muscles. Let child mix and roll dough and push flat. Allow child to help you carry posts and pans, bowls of water or ingredients (with supervision, of course). Let you child tenderize meat with the meat mallet.

GROCERY SHOPPING: Have your child push the heavy cart (as long as the weight is within their capabilities). Let your child help carry heave groceries and help put them away.

MEALTIME: Encourage eating of chewy foods and drinking out of a straw. Try having your child sit on an air cushion to allow some movement. A weighted lap blanket may be helpful as well.

HOUSEHOLD CHORES: Allow the child to help with the vacuuming or moving the furniture. Let the child help carry the laundry basket or the detergent. Let the child help with digging for gardening or landscaping.

PLAYTIME: Reading books in a rocking chair or bean-bag chair may be beneficial. You can help your child make up obstacle courses in the house or yard using crawling, jumping, hopping, skipping, rolling, etc. Listen to soft music. Play the sandwich game (child lies in between two pillows and pretends to be the sandwich, while you provide pressure to the top pillow to the child's desired amount.) Ask them "harder or softer?" as you push on the pillow. Some children will like much more pressure than you would expect. you can also go for a neighborhood walk with a wagon and have your child pull it (make it semi-heavy by loading it with something the child would like to pull around). You can do the same with the baby-doll carriage. Swimming in a pool is a wonderful activity if you have that available,, as are horseback riding and bowling. Mini or full-size trampolines are excellent for providing sensory input as well. Make sure the child is using them safely. Sandboxes or big containers of beans or popcorn kernels can be fun play-boxes too if you add small cards, shovels, cups, etc.

ERRANDS AND APPOINTMENTS: Before visiting the dentist or hairdresser try deep massage to the head or scalp (of tolerated), or try having your child wear a weighted hat. Try chewy foods or vibration to the mouth with an electric toothbrush. Let your child wear a heavy backpack (weighted to their liking with books and with the straps padded as needed). Be sure to give the child ample warning before any changes in routine or any unscheduled trips or errands. Many children with SPD need predictability.

OTHER GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR THE HOME:

~ Keep routines and possessions organized.

~ Be consistent with rules and consequences.

~ Keep an activity schedule or calendar posted.

~ Create specific routines for troublesome times of the day (bedtime or getting ready for school).

~ Discuss upcoming anticipated changes in routine at a point in time that is beneficial for your child. You will have to experiment with how early the child "needs to know".

~ Try to indirectly use your child's sensory preferences for fun rewards to help you handle behavior. For example, having your child work towards an extra trip to go bowling or horseback riding may be helpful. However, try not to restrict movement activities when you child is being disciplined. For example, taking away recess time or playground time for not sitting at the table appropriately during dinner may not be the most effective way to deal with these issues. Your child may need movement time, and by removing it, his or her behavior may actually become more difficult later.

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Try some of these suggestions and let me know if they work for you. I'd love to hear feedback if you do them. I would also love any tips that you can offer on how you deal with your child's tantrums, behaviors, etc.

Join us for Therapy Thursdays

Hello everyone and welcome back! I am here to tell everyone that now on Thursdays we are going to have something called Therapy Thursdays. All you have to do is email me or Michelle with any questions or comments that you want either heard or answered and we will put them in a post with the advice from one of our therapists on Thursdays.



We are bringing two therapists on board to help with questions, comments, new ideas and so on. They are Little Miss' Developmental Therapist, April (we will post her intro as soon as we can) and Little Miss' Speech Therapist, Shireen (who has already posted her intro). Please give them a warm welcome and have your questions and/or comments in by Tuesday of each week so they have time to answer all of them.



From time to time they may also post links to new places for you to check out, new ideas on different therapy ideas, at home recipes for you to try with your youngins and so on. I can't wait for our first Therapy Thursday which will start next week. So mark your calendars and submit your questions by Tuesday. See you all then!

More frustrations....

I'm still SO annoyed over this. I know part of it's my fault for not checking up sooner, but shouldn't it be the Early Intervention Coordinator's job to make sure everything is running smoothly? I might be naive, but I *thought* that's what part of their job was.

SO here's the situation. When Little Man began services in October, he was set up to have an O.T. come to the house 1x/week, a D.I. (Developmental Interventionist) to go to the daycare he goes to every other week, and a Speech Therapist to come 1x every 3 months.

The D.I. went to *one* session with him, and because of some drama between her and the daycare, she was asked not to come back. That was November. Right afterwards, a new D.I. was assigned, and they said she'd start 'in a few weeks and that she'd call me to set something up'. It's now almost the end of January, and up until yesterday, I had not heard ANYTHING from the D.I, nor the Coordinator.

I finally called the Coordinator and she was shocked that the D.I. hadn't been out there - she thought all along that she was going every week for the past 8 weeks. Ummm, NOPE. So of course once she called the D.I to find out what was going on, the D.I called me right away to set something up for Monday.

So yay, Little Man will finally start getting his D.I. services! But geeze, could it have taken any longer to set up??? He's apparently entitled to 'catch up' services, although I'm not really sure what that is.

The first D.I., even though she only lasted a day, worked on his sensory and tactile issues, so hopefully this therapist will be able to work on that with him. Lord knows he needs it!