Sensory Processing Disorder
Sensory Processing Disorder
WHAT IS SENSORY PROCESSING DISORDER?
Sensory Processing Disorders arise when sensory input (sight, sound, touch, taste, smells) are not adequately processed in order to create an appropriate response.
Children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) often present with behaviors that are not easily explained. As their parents or their school professionals try to limit these behaviors with negative consequences, frustration often results when the child continues despite such intervention.
For these children, their primary issue is that they cannot process all that the world has to give them on a minute-to-minute basis. Intense visual and auditory stimuli challenge their visual and auditory sensory processing abilities. The deep and light touch input from their parents or other children (hugs and tickles) challenges their proprioceptive system. Constant demands for good balance when sitting or standing, or when with other children, challenges their kinesthetic and vestibular systems. The textures of food in their mouths, soap on their hands, or even the feel of the floor on their feet (especially for toe-walkers) challenges their tactile systems.
To function on a daily basis, a child must be able to register the presence of all these stimuli, sift through which ones are meaningful, and come up with a logical motor or verbal response. This is very demanding, and often unsustainable for the child with Sensory Processing Disorder. The result instead can be a constant fight or flight response, with loss of self-regulation and “good behavior” as the child tries to cope.
HOW DOES KIDS IN MOTION TREAT SENSORY PROCESSING DISORDER?
Our Occupational Therapists address the core of Sensory Processing Disorders in children, and are experts in their fields. Their advanced training offers children:
Sensory Integrative Therapy - Helping each child to better process sensory information for improved daily function. Their vast repertoire of techniques includes extensive work on swings and suspended equipment at our center to maximize the function of their visual, vestibular and tactile systems, as well as improve the associated core strength deficits we see in these children.
Therapeutic Listening - Using highly modulated music for calming and self-regulation, provides powerful input to the auditory and vestibular system (also located in the ear complex).
Compression Therapy – Using deep compression through therapeutic techniques and garments (SPIO, Benik, Theratogs, Fabrifoam Wraps) calm and organize a child as they try to regroup during the day.
These are just a few of the tools and techniques we use to treat children with SPDs.