What is Sensory Integration?
The human nervous system is comprised of the brain, the spinal cord, and two kinds of nerves….nerves for moving and nerves for sensing. Some muscles have both kinds. The muscles in your legs you can feel and move. The muscles that open and close your vocal cords you can move, but you can’t feel (thankfully, since they are in high speed all day long while we talk).
It is the nerves behind the five senses, plus the movement (motor) nerves, that take wonderful, raw sensory “data” to the brain. It is in the brain that this data gets “processed” into useful concepts like "blue" or "hot" or "sour". Young children who are playing are “gathering sensory data”, they aren’t actively thinking. They are sensing. Gathering data is a logical first step to building any knowledge bank. I't's from there that you can make associations, and then choices. A thinking human being has emerged. Add words to this thinking and you have a verbal human being.
It starts with the senses. When children play, each sense is experienced for its own sake. Nature tricks us into learning by satisfying the senses. Oldest trick in the book if you are a PARENT.
Think of the child as a tree, just like the one in our logo at the top of this page. Big, strong, thick trunked, strong branches type of tree. Huge veins run the length of the trunk, sucking the water and nutrition out of the ground. Visualize your child as a tree and each of the major veins represent each of the five senses, and one more for movement. Each vein stretches up and branches out and all the details of that sense are explored until the branch is heavy and complex.
The main Auditory Branch has smaller branches for auditory details such as loud, quiet, harmonic, vocal, environmental, high, low, simple, complex, etc. The Visual Branch has smaller branches for shape, size, color, etc. The Tactile Branch has hard, soft, wet, cold, bumpy, slick, etc. The Olfactory Branch has stinky, sweet, toasty, floral, etc. The Taste Branch has spicy, sweet, sour, etc. The Movement Branch has slow, fast, rhythmic, still, etc. All these branches bring increasingly more specific information to the brain.
After all six have made such branches, you have a full tree.
What do branches do? Bear fruit! Each of these detailed sensory experiences gets a WORD, a sequence of certain sounds. Not just any sequence of sounds. But, depending on your language, a specific sequence of sounds from a limited list of sounds. These sequences have to be articulated exactly the same each time if they are to do their job, which is to carry meaning to a listener.
So branches bear fruit..in this case WORDS and THOUGHTS.
These are the most basic tools for thinking and using language.
The ability to communicate with words or the ability to observe the world and get an idea…where did it all begin? It began by going out to play and sensing your surroundings. Uninterrupted, at length, alone. Or together with someone who cares about you and will point things out so you don’t miss anything! That would be your parent, your teacher, or your therapist!
Where can one get these rich, sensory experiences? Art, food, baths, clothes, bed, woods, the beach, in gardens, books, music, while cooking, eating, drinking, walking, running, swimming, jumping, climbing, or being with flowers. Starting a young child off with a rich sensory life is criticial to healthy development. Maintaining a healthy exposure to sensory pleasure maintains a healthy balance for human beings. It’s the way we are wired!
With a full understanding of the role of the senses in development and learning, trained professionals can observe a child and identify where “sensory integration” has not occurred—causing the child to behave in certain ways. Watching the child’s reaction to a variety of environments will tell what senses are “turned up” while others are “turned down.” Human beings will do whatever they have to (and sometimes it looks strange) to “turn down” their hypersenses, or “turn up” their hyposenses. The goal is to avoid overwhelm at all costs and to create a balance of a calm, alert state of mind. When therapists understand a child’s behavior, the child can be facilitated. One child needs a dark room, another needs it to be bright. One wants slow music, the next one wants fast music or silence. The variations are as endless as the variations between children.
Sensory Integration is one of the functions of the human nervous system. It is the “happy train” to the brain because sensory adventures can be so much fun! Children with “Sensory Integration Disorder” have difficulty learning and they need sensory adventures to be provided in a very careful way. When Sensory Integration is part of therapy, it’s much more fun, learning occurs faster, and it can be done at home during the normal activities of the child.
It is the nerves behind the five senses, plus the movement (motor) nerves, that take wonderful, raw sensory “data” to the brain. It is in the brain that this data gets “processed” into useful concepts like "blue" or "hot" or "sour". Young children who are playing are “gathering sensory data”, they aren’t actively thinking. They are sensing. Gathering data is a logical first step to building any knowledge bank. I't's from there that you can make associations, and then choices. A thinking human being has emerged. Add words to this thinking and you have a verbal human being.
It starts with the senses. When children play, each sense is experienced for its own sake. Nature tricks us into learning by satisfying the senses. Oldest trick in the book if you are a PARENT.
Think of the child as a tree, just like the one in our logo at the top of this page. Big, strong, thick trunked, strong branches type of tree. Huge veins run the length of the trunk, sucking the water and nutrition out of the ground. Visualize your child as a tree and each of the major veins represent each of the five senses, and one more for movement. Each vein stretches up and branches out and all the details of that sense are explored until the branch is heavy and complex.
The main Auditory Branch has smaller branches for auditory details such as loud, quiet, harmonic, vocal, environmental, high, low, simple, complex, etc. The Visual Branch has smaller branches for shape, size, color, etc. The Tactile Branch has hard, soft, wet, cold, bumpy, slick, etc. The Olfactory Branch has stinky, sweet, toasty, floral, etc. The Taste Branch has spicy, sweet, sour, etc. The Movement Branch has slow, fast, rhythmic, still, etc. All these branches bring increasingly more specific information to the brain.
After all six have made such branches, you have a full tree.
What do branches do? Bear fruit! Each of these detailed sensory experiences gets a WORD, a sequence of certain sounds. Not just any sequence of sounds. But, depending on your language, a specific sequence of sounds from a limited list of sounds. These sequences have to be articulated exactly the same each time if they are to do their job, which is to carry meaning to a listener.
So branches bear fruit..in this case WORDS and THOUGHTS.
These are the most basic tools for thinking and using language.
The ability to communicate with words or the ability to observe the world and get an idea…where did it all begin? It began by going out to play and sensing your surroundings. Uninterrupted, at length, alone. Or together with someone who cares about you and will point things out so you don’t miss anything! That would be your parent, your teacher, or your therapist!
Where can one get these rich, sensory experiences? Art, food, baths, clothes, bed, woods, the beach, in gardens, books, music, while cooking, eating, drinking, walking, running, swimming, jumping, climbing, or being with flowers. Starting a young child off with a rich sensory life is criticial to healthy development. Maintaining a healthy exposure to sensory pleasure maintains a healthy balance for human beings. It’s the way we are wired!
With a full understanding of the role of the senses in development and learning, trained professionals can observe a child and identify where “sensory integration” has not occurred—causing the child to behave in certain ways. Watching the child’s reaction to a variety of environments will tell what senses are “turned up” while others are “turned down.” Human beings will do whatever they have to (and sometimes it looks strange) to “turn down” their hypersenses, or “turn up” their hyposenses. The goal is to avoid overwhelm at all costs and to create a balance of a calm, alert state of mind. When therapists understand a child’s behavior, the child can be facilitated. One child needs a dark room, another needs it to be bright. One wants slow music, the next one wants fast music or silence. The variations are as endless as the variations between children.
Sensory Integration is one of the functions of the human nervous system. It is the “happy train” to the brain because sensory adventures can be so much fun! Children with “Sensory Integration Disorder” have difficulty learning and they need sensory adventures to be provided in a very careful way. When Sensory Integration is part of therapy, it’s much more fun, learning occurs faster, and it can be done at home during the normal activities of the child.