Stumbling Through Sensory Processing

From the Tapestry Blog:

Painting with lotionI’ve been reading a lot about sensory processing recently, and I’ve been thinking about how to better incorporate sensory activities into our family time. We’ve dabbled in various sensory activities (tactile, visual, audio, vestibular, proprioceptive) over the years but have never really hit upon anything with lasting results. I even tried a few things last week with little or no impact. Then, this weekend we found something.

Our girls were rough housing with their dad, and they thought it was great. After playing for a little bit, we made a “sandwich” using two pillows and our oldest daughter in the middle of the pillows. We rubbed imaginary peanut butter and jelly on her back with firm hand strokes. (I chose to rub her back two different ways to differentiate between the peanut butter and the jelly.) Then I lightly pressed the other pillow on top of her to make a sandwich. She asked for this to be repeated 3 or 4 times, and sometimes she asked for just peanut butter or just jelly or both. We didn’t really think anything of it until we were reflecting on the evening after the girls were in bed.

Late afternoon/early evening can be a wild time in our house. But this night we realized that our oldest had stayed calm before dinner, stayed in her seat the whole time, cleaned her plate, and had continued to stay calm for the rest of the evening. So a light bulb sort of went off in our heads, and we started to think that maybe we stumbled upon the right combination for Elise – rough housing and sandwiching (or vestibular input followed by proprioceptive input).

We’re planning to try this combination regularly to see if we can establish a pattern of behavior from it. Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks, we can try a combination of these two activities and stop the late afternoon downward spiral. Whatever happens, we’re going to continue experimenting with sensory activities and paying attention to their effects. Why? Because we know we won’t discover effective sensory activities for our family unless we’re intentional about trying new things and watching closely for improvements.

If you are wondering where to look for sensory activity ideas or just more information, I would suggest reading The Out-of-Sync-Child and The-Out-of-Sync-Child-Has-Fun. The latter features a ton of ideas for sensory rich activities to try with your kids. And of course, as the title suggests, it can be fun.

If there’s an activity that works great for your family or another resource you would recommend, feel free to tell us about it by leaving a comment on this post. I would love to hear what’s working for you guys, too.

0 Replies to “Stumbling Through Sensory Processing”

  1. Thanks, I’ve just been searching for information approximately this topic for a while and yours is the best I’ve came upon so far. But, what about the bottom line? Are you positive about the supply?

  2. Definitely believe that which you stated. Your favorite reason seemed
    to be on the internet the easiest thing to be aware of.
    I say to you, I definitely get annoyed while people think about worries that they just do not know about.
    You managed to hit the nail upon the top and defined out the whole
    thing without having side-effects , people can take a signal.
    Will likely be back to get more. Thanks

  3. Someone essentially assist to make severely articles I’d state. This is the first time I frequented your web page and to this point? I amazed with the research you made to create this particular publish amazing. Great activity!

  4. While regular doctoral program peers generally have teaching assistantships along with
    tuition waivers, most online candidates are forced to sign up for the horrible
    student loans to end their plans.

  5. Someone necessarily lend a hand to make critically articles I would state. This is the very first time I frequented your web page and to this point? I amazed with the analysis you made to make this actual put up extraordinary. Magnificent job!

  6. I not to mention my buddies ended up digesting the excellent information found on your website and quickly I had a horrible suspicion I never expressed respect to the web blog owner for those techniques. My men happened to be consequently glad to read them and have now in actuality been taking advantage of them. Many thanks for simply being very considerate and then for obtaining this sort of great information most people are really eager to be informed on. My sincere regret for not expressing appreciation to you earlier.

  7. You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be really something that I think I would never understand. It seems too complex and very broad for me. I’m looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!

  8. Works with PC, Mac OS, all browsers and all mobile devices(Android i – OS).
    During the tutorial you learn the basics of the game.

    Trust me, even if you don’t like the games, it will be an experience that you can draw from.

  9. Good day! Do you know if they make any plugins to help with Search Engine Optimization? I’m trying to get
    my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but
    I’m not seeing very good success. If you know of any please share.
    Kudos!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *