The Sensory Post

A few people have asked me how we address Little G's sensory processing needs. The short answer is, "With a sensory diet." Most people respond with, "Cool! Um, what's a sensory diet?"

A lot of Little G's sensory diet is so intertwined with our daily activities that I actually have to put effort into thinking about each thing to make a comprehensive, well-defined list. As his 6th birthday approaches, we have been doing sensory diet activities with G for 2/3 of his life, so it is literally second nature at this point. And he has come so far. Once the little boy who would dissolve into a sobbing, inconsolable heap if I happened to put a shirt with (or without, it depended on the day) sleeves on him, he can now handle just about any type of clothing. I used to have to shop at secondhand clothing stores because he needed the broken-in feel of washed and worn clothing. Not that I'm complaining, I love a good bargain! But selection was an issue sometimes, so I basically had to shop constantly to make sure he had all the soft clothes he needed each season.

Why a Sensory Diet?

Just as children need a good nutritional diet, they also need a rich sensory diet. In preschool and sometimes Kindergarten classrooms, you will often find sensory tubs with dried beans, rice, or sand, painting stations, musical instruments, and lots of other objects and toys designed to provide young children with various sensory experiences. Some children, like my son, need much more than others; he is a sensory seeker. In some areas, he is also a sensory avoider, such as with auditory (noise), visual (excessive movement, bright lights), and oral (food, dentist) input.

What is sensory processing disorder?

The best way I have come up with to explain sensory processing disorder to others is that my son has the volume turned way up on his senses; he lives in a world where the radio is too loud and he cannot turn it down, so he has to find ways to cope with the volume. He doesn't, and probably never really will, experience the world in the way most people do. In a typically-functioning sensory system, the brain sort of has gateways or gatekeepers; it moves relevant, necessary information to the conscious mind so we can focus on what we need to, while filtering out unnecessary environmental stimuli that would otherwise be extremely distracting. For example, while shopping at the grocery store, you may be aware that there is noise. You ignore most of it with little effort and go about shopping like everyone else does. A particularly loud or unrelenting scream from a child may catch your attention, or a loud announcement about a manager's special, but for the most part your focus is not broken and concentration is not difficult.

In the same store, my son is aware of every individual noise. His sensory gatekeeper isn't distinguishing between necessary and unnecessary sensory input, and nothing is held back. He hears every beep of every cash register, the buzzing lights, the voices competing with one another, all of the crying babies and children within ear shot, the squeaking wheel on the cart, the item a customer just dropped as they were reaching for something, the automatic doors opening and closing, a bird that flew in chirping way up in the framework of the ceiling, the oven timer going off in the bakery, the music on the speakers, the televisions and video games in the electronics department, the clicking of a device being used to scan items by a store worker, and so on.

If it seems virtually impossible that someone would be aware of all of these things at once, consider yourself fortunate. If it sounds awful and exhausting, I assure you it is. It is not uncommon for my son, almost 6 years old, to fall asleep in the car after a trip to a store because his brain has just done the equivalent of a marathon processing all of that.

So what do we do to help him cope? Lots of things. The goal is to provide the sensory input he craves, or give him tools to cope with sensory input he feels overwhelmed by, in ways that are the both socially acceptable and functional for him.

Shopping and Other Potential Overload Situations

We have a deal in stores; if Little G stays with me and remains calm while we are walking, he can spin in place while I am browsing in a section. This helps him deal with the overwhelming sensory overload. It works extremely well to keep him calm and able to handle focusing when he needs to. I also encourage him to grab things for me from lower shelves and put them into the cart. Having something to do in the store helps a lot, as it gives him something purposeful to do and something to focus on.

At the mall, I typically use a stroller for him. He is very short for his age, so he still fits easily and comfortably into our stroller. It allows him to deal with the environment by simply closing his eyes, focusing on the patterns in the floor or ceiling decorations, or to get lost in his mp3 player - things he cannot safely do while walking. If it is a shorter trip and we do without the stroller, I might give him a snack like fruit leather to chew on or let him carry a familiar comfort object like his toy cat.

Dining Out: The Mega-Overload

Little G has some rather severe sensory aversions when it comes to anything mouth-related. Except brushing his teeth, which he loves to do. In fact, when I want him to try a new food, I will often have him brush his teeth (without toothpaste, as to not alter flavor) before doing so. But it is not always possible to do this, and dining out can present some serious sensory overload potentials.

As with many other things, Little G likes the idea of dining out. In practice, it can be quite unpleasant. A few months ago, a friend of mine invited me out to a rather busy and loud restaurant with my children. I decided to try it, mostly for the sake of my friend but also to find out how Little G would handle it. Little G tuned out completely, focusing his entire existence on eating his salad, but he was absorbing all of the sensory input. He fell asleep in the car almost immediately, so I knew right away that he had been severely overloaded with sensory input. And sure enough, it was three days before he calmed down, slept at a normal time, and stopped throwing himself against couch cushions and spinning in circles.

This is a situation where we simply make our choice of location carefully. There are plenty of restaurants where the atmosphere is calm, without blaring music and screaming children. Restaurants with "sports bars" are absolutely out. The ones where the customers are typically not children and families work better. We sometimes get a sideways look coming in the door, but that is always followed with comments on what "polite and well-behaved" children we have. What a difference their sensory environment can make!

School, Speech Therapy, and Learning

When Little G was in formal speech therapy, I would always give him lots of proprioceptive input within 30 minutes of going into his session. He was in gymnastics for a while, and that worked well for balancing him out and giving all of his joints and muscles the input they needed to he didn't feel so "bouncy" when he needed to be calm and focus. When he was not in gymnastics prior to speech therapy, I invented a game called Push Mama. We would put our hands together and he would push me backward around the building. This, too, gave him the input he needed to feel "balanced" as I like to call it.

Since we homeschool, it's obviously not a problem to let Little G flap and spin and jump during his lessons, because it does not interfere with his learning. And sometimes I do let him. However, he needs coping skills that will translate well into the world outside, and he sure can't do that in a Cub Scouts meeting or a community art class.

Just as we did to prepare for speech therapy, we have activities which help give Little G's joints and muscles lots of good input before he has to be more calm and focused. There is little preparation needed for the first class of the day, which is almost always Math or G's choice, but his need for sensory input increases throughout the day. At break time, we can go outside and run, kick a ball, ride bikes, play on the swing set, or play hop scotch.

Daily Sensory Input

Little G's need for sensory input is mostly of the proprioceptive variety; he loves spinning, rocking, swinging, jumping, running, bumping into things and people, hugs, eskimo kisses, clapping games, hula hooping, and dancing to music. I make sure these things are very much a part of his daily sensory diet.

While we usually discourage running in the house, the weather here is limiting for outdoor play during the winter - especially when my son hates being cold. With the house cleaned up and the floor cleared of toys, I do allow Little G to run in the house - usually as part of some game or with direction, not just wildly and randomly. We do the Electric Slide, The Hokey Pokey, The Chicken Dance, and other children's activity songs; YouTube is a great resource for these! Their History curriculum includes songs, so I add clapping, dancing, or other movement to those (they have mini flags to wave around to It's A Grand Old Flag, for example).

The two sensory issues I am still trying to work out are tricky. One is emotion/behavior self-regulation and the other is his severe oral defensiveness. These probably deserve dedicated posts of their own, since there are more factors involved than just sensory. Little G's speech disorder and his diagnosis of autism definitely play their own roles in these sensory struggles. I will post about these sometime in the near future.