Sensory Integration: We are sensational!

Sensory integration

﻿Hi, my name is Anele and I'm one of the occupational therapists. We have been looking at sensory integration. And in today's lesson, we are going to have an overview of everything that we have learned. We as therapists have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. We will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and abilities. Each lesson will have ideas and activities that can be carried out at home or in school. This information is to be used alongside any specific strategies or resources which have been given by your child's school or therapist. If you have any questions or would like help tailoring this to your child's needs, then please contact your local therapy service. So let's think back about all our senses that we have. If we think about our eyes, our eyes work together as a team, and you only need a very little bit of light to see. Our eyes help us to see colour, to see shapes, to see near and see far away. And our eyes really help us to stay safe. And they're really important. Let's have a look at our ears. They also work together as a team, and they help us to hear sounds. They also help us to locate where people or noise are coming from and that helps us to stay safe. Our ears enjoy listening to music, but our music taste is very individual. Some of us like fast music, others like really calm and rhythmic music. Our sense of touch is another thing that we have and it helps us to recognise and interpret, touch, different touches such as soft and hard, pain and pleasure. It helps us to identify temperature and texture as well. And it helps us stay safe. Our proprioception sense is our power scene, this is one of the ones that you can't really see, but it's really important in everything that we do. There are little nerve messengers in your joints and in your muscles that tell your brain about how heavy something is, when you have to pick it up, and where your body is in space. So our proprioception sense helps us to run, to climb, to play. And also when we have to carry things that we carry them carefully. Our movement sense is another one of these hidden senses. So our movement sense is, if you remember, inside our ear there is a little balance senses, and they help us to balance, to run, to walk, to crawl, to spin around, to lean over and pick something up and walk backwards. Our movement sense helps us to use both sides of both bodies together as well. And it works very closely with all the other senses especially with our eyes and our ears and our proprioceptive senses. Our sense of taste is inside our mouth, and this is the place where we start to digest food. So our tongue helps us to taste, it helps us to taste sweet and sour, and salt and bitter. And one of the things it does, it helps us to keep safe so that when we taste something bitter we go, "Is this safe?" When something salty or something sweet and when people were living a long long time ago, they were thinking well, if it tastes sweet and it tastes salty, then there must be some nutrients in there. So nutrients is just something healthy that your body can use to keep itself alive and to keep you growing. Our sense of smell helps us to breathe. And we have nostrils and hair and these little hair cells, and our nasal passageways help us to filter some of the air, and then when it reaches our lungs, it is easier for our lungs to process the air that we breathe. Our nose also adds some moisture and warmth to make it easier for our lungs to take in the air. But something really important about our nose, is it helps us with our smell, and it's amazing. We have heard that there's so many smells, you can't even count how many smells your nose can smell. And finally we have learned that our interior sector of sense. Or the my 'inside-my-body' senses. We have learned about all our different organs and how we have a sensory response to our heart rate, our breath, feeling hungry and thirsty, to our bladder, when our bladder is full. We also learned about body feelings, when we are feeling worried, and when we are feeling relaxed. And finally, we've learned about temperature, and about feeling hot and cold. What a journey that has been. You can sometimes be oversensitive or under responsive to sensations. And what do we mean by that? It means that we can have a low registration to sensory input. That's when your cup needs a lot of filling up before you start to register what is happening. And it means that you can sometimes miss, some of the sensory cues that your body and the environment is giving to you. It may be that you're not filtering sensations very well. And that's when you are very sensitive to sensory information. And it's always that cup that overflows and then you get into a bit of muddle. Because there's so many things that, you're really easily distracted by what's happening around you. And you cannot.... You struggle to focus on what is important and in front of you. When you don't process sensory information, all that well, it may be that you're seeking a lot of sensory input and you probably don't get enough. So you may be someone who likes to touch people all of the time, or enjoy spinning and spinning and spinning all of the time. We often say that that is like having a leaky cup, that it doesn't matter how much sensory information that you pour into the cup, it always leaves out at the bottom. And finally, we're thinking about sensory regulation and that you sometimes want to avoid sensation because it's just too much and your sensory system is really overwhelmed. And that's when your cup is overflowing and that you cannot take any more sensations and sometimes this will make you want to run away or you may want to shout because you just don't like the amount of touch or movement or noise that is around you, and it can make you feel really worried. So, what I want you to do finally, is I want you to chat to your parent or your carer about all of your senses and remind yourself what you can do when you are over responsive or under responsive. So maybe you want to have a look at going back to some of the senses, and maybe go back to some of the lessons to remind yourself some of the things that we have learned. Pause the video here and have a chat with your parent or carer and then once you finished, press play and we will carry on with this lesson. Your senses affect your mood and concentration from the moment that you wake up until you go to bed and we are amazingly put together. We are sensational. And I wanted to remind you of our sensational senses by just reading you this little short story. Imagine you're playing rounders in PE, and you're up to bat. You use your vestibular sense to take your batting stance, and proprioception to sense where your hands are, where your feet are, and how you should swing to make contact with the ball. You then see the ball come closer to you and you swing. You hear the ball crack against the bat and you know you've hit it, so you begin to run. You continue to listen and look as you see the other players running to get the ball and tag you out. You can see you're getting closer to the base, but so is the ball. So you decide to slide. As you slide, you balance your body, extend your arms because you're aware of a position and that they will reach the base first and feel to know in the base is against your fingertips. It may be a little unpleasant to taste and smell the dirt as you slide, but your senses confirm you've made it. Remember that you are the boss over your senses. You are sensational. Have a great day.

Sensory Integration: We are sensational!

Sensory Integration: We are sensational!

These resources were made for remote use during the pandemic, not classroom teaching.

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