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New Year 2008
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Understanding Sensory Integration
by Lena Winston
All children (and adults) have unique sensory systems with preferences that help them stay focused most effectively. For example: an adult drinks a bottle of water or has a piece of hard candy to stay focused during a work meeting. Children with Sensory Integration Disorder (DSI), more recently termed Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), have difficulty focusing, and may have the appearance of inattention or hyperactivity. Symptoms are most often treated with medication in our society. SPD is often overlapped with the diagnoses of ADD and ADHD, as well as the Autism spectrum. Sensory integration therapy is a great adjunct to other modalities to teach a child and the adults around him to understand his sensory needs and provide activities that help a child feel good.
Sensory integration is "play" for a child through movement on swings, tactile activities, heavy work, push/pull, obstacle courses, and coordinating activities. A child improves his ability to interact with his environment, his self awareness, self esteem, self confidence, and social skills. The indicators that suggest that your child may benefit from sensory integration therapy are:
Over-sensitivity to touch, movement, sights, sounds or taste (picky eater)
Tendencies to seek out opportunities for touch or movement stimulation and to put objects in his mouth
Displays of impulsive, fidgety or distractible behavior or clumsiness
Activity level that is unusually high or unusually low
Difficulty making transitions
Delays in speech and language, fine motor skills and/or academic achievement
Difficulties with social skills
If a child has difficulty with several of these symptoms at home or school, then contacting an occupational therapist to provide an evaluation would be the next step.
Lena Winston, OTR/L is the owner of KIDS OT to PLAY, offering individual occupational therapy in Danvers, MA. Focus of sessions includes sensory integration; fine motor/gross motor coordination, handwriting, brain gym, listening programs, and self help skill development. Speech/OT pragmatics and social skills groups are ongoing. Lena is certified in sensory integration and a provider of the therapeutic listening program. She has been providing sensory integration treatment to children since 1999 working in the area of child/adolescent psychiatry, outpatient therapy and school settings. Lena also teaches workshops for teachers and parents. Her belief in this work has been led by her experience that sensory integration makes a significant difference in a child’s life. For a free 20 minute phone consultation, please contact Lena at 978-290-0454.