Our Sense of Taste

Sensory integration

﻿In this lesson, we are going to learn more about the sense of taste. 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 support on across all ages 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. Today we're going to explore our sense of taste and we're going to look at what it means to be over sensitive and also what happens when we don't register taste really well. So what we're going to need is you're going to ask your parent or carer to help you choose something edible, that is salty, sweet, sour, bitter and then have a glass of water or milk, ready with you, so once you've collected all of those resources press play and we will carry on with this lesson. Now, our sense of taste is all to do with our mouth, our tongue and our teeth, and these three things help us to digest our meals, but our tongue is really important because it has little taste buds. And these help us to taste sweet, sour, salt and bitter. Now here's a few fun facts. You have between 2,000 and 4,000 taste buds, that's quite a lot. And your tongue muscle, is really powerful and it's used constantly for eating, for talking and for swallowing. And our sense of taste was really, really important for survival, with our ancestors, many, many, many years ago, because tastes like bitter, or sour, would have helped them to know that the food may not have been quite right, because remember they did not have fridges, and they didn't have ovens, they would've had to cook their food on the fire and when they had to store it, they had to just store it a cool place. So when something tasted bitter or sour, it may have warned them that this is not quite right, and it's interesting to know that our taste buds for bitter is right at the back of our tongue, and it's almost as if it's the last thing if you can, you can chew something but once it hits those bitter receptors, you would want to spit it out before you swallow it. Where as with sweet and salty tastes help our ancestors to know that there's some nutrition in what they were eating. So that's a few fun facts for you to remember. We're going to do an activity now and what you're going to do is you are going to have a go at tasting something that is salty, something sweet, something sour and something bitter. So something salty could be grains of just salt or it could be something like crisps, something sweet could be a few grains of sugar or something else that you find sweet, sour is often something lemony, um and bitter, coffee granules can taste quite bitter. And then there's other things as well that you can, that you can try but I'm sure that's something that you can speak to your parent or carer about, so the idea is you're going to taste, you can use a teaspoon or you can use the tip of your finger, and you can just press it into the grains of sugar if you want to, and put it on the tip of your tongue and then have a taste, then take a sip of your milk or your water to wash it all down, and for it to kind of disappear from your mouth and then try the next thing, and then have a chat with your parent or carer about which of these tastes do you prefer? So once you've done that, press play and we will carry on to the lesson. Wow isn't it interesting, you can really taste salt, sweet, bitter and also that soury taste. Many people will say that sour tastes are very alerting and it helps you to kind of wake up, where as sweet tastes can be quite calming to our body, I don't know what do you think? What do you find energising? And what do you find calming? What do you like to taste when you are tired or upset or happy? have a chat with your parent or carer about all of these questions. And then I'm going to ask you to make a list of you favourite foods and then have a chat with your parent or carer about what taste categories these are, because that will help you to kind of figure out a little bit where the salty, sour, bitter or sweet tastes are things that help you to be more kind of alert or whether it helps you to calm down. So you're going to pause the video now to complete this task and then once you've finished, you're going to press play and we're going to carry on. Well done, you have been a fantastic explorer of taste have a great day.

Our Sense of Taste

Our Sense of Taste

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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