SEPAC Presentation By Barb Zweber Occupational Therapy New Prague Schools November 20, 2017
OVERVIEW OF TONIGHT ❖ What is Occupational Therapy ❖ To understand parts of the sensory system ❖ Participate in sensory inventory ❖ Ways in implement sensory activities into your daily routine
Occupational Therapy OT is a part of the educational team - Ann Johnson, Andrea Beno Our goal is to help children to prepare and perform learning and school related activities to make them successful. OT supports academic and nonacademic outcomes including development skills, math , reading writing, self regulation, recess, self help , vocation and more
Who is Eligible for OT Birth to 21 years old services can be direct or consultative Must qualify for special education services as defined by Minnesota ● State Guidelines Comprehension evaluation will be administered in all areas of ● concern by a team and they will determine services needed. OT is a related service on the IEP - can’t stand alone and must have ● another service like written expression or behavior and then OT will help support this overall education of the student Goal is for students to no longer need services due to great success ● and independence
Sensory Intergration Proprioceptive Vestibular
Picture from: Wilbarger, Patricia. (2006). Sensory Defensiveness: A comprehensive Treatment Approach. Conference manual, Toronto, ON.
PROPRIOCEPTION ● Sensations from joints and muscles ● We can always tell the position of our body, without even looking ● Push, pull, lift, carry weighted things ● Usually is calming and focusing
VESTIBULAR SENSE ■ FOUND IN THE INNER EAR ■ SENDS INFORMATION TO OUR BRAIN REGARDING: - BALANCE - MOVEMENT - MUSCLE TONE ■ COORDINATES EYES, HEAD AND BODY ■ CAN BE EASILY OVERSTIMULATING (car s ick) ■ DEEP PRESSURE CAN CALM THE SYSTEM
Occupational Therapist’s Role • Empower you to be sensory investigators • Figure out more about your child’s sensory based needs • Suggest regular, daily activities to attempt to help keep your child regulated • Work on helping the child to increase their self awareness and adaptive response to input
Sensory Thresholds High = more sensory input is necessary for the child to register the information or respond Low = it takes less sensory input to notice the input and/or get a (responds slower, response under sensitive) (responds quickly, over sensitive)
Vision Over sensitive ■ Dislikes bright lights Under sensitive ■ Covers eyes ■ Seeking visually active ■ Becomes upset by or toys/tasks/ avoids visually busy environments environments ■ Appears not to notice ■ Is distracted by visual what is going on around elements of the them environment (reads posters rather than attending to instruction)
Auditory System Is it Under Sensitive or Over sensitive ? Under sensitive ■ Makes noises ■ Likes music and musical toys ■ Talks self through tasks or situations ■ Appears not to hear (although no hearing deficit)
Auditory- Over sensitive Covers ears ■ Avoids loud activities lunchrooms, class parties ■ Distracted by noises others wouldn’t notice (background noise) ■ Making noise to drown out unwanted sounds
Strategies to Help • What your child likes and what strategies work best for your child is a puzzle to figure out • What is regulating for one child may be very disorganizing for another!
Calming Power Tools • Think about your own calming activities. What helps you to wind down after a long day? • Think about your own alerting activities and how you help to wake yourself up when you feel tired. • Think about things that are disorganizing to you? Things that make you feel “frazzled” or make you mad. How do you calm down after these times?
Calming Activities: Engaging your Child • Breathing is one of the “power regulators” and helps our body get back to a calm state ( yoga for relaxation • Breathing is important in our ability to pay attention because oxygen is delivered to our brain. • A lot of children do not breathe deeply enough to get a lot of oxygen (possibly due to posture, anxiety, etc.)
Calming Activities: Engaging your Child • Some breathing activity ideas: – Playing games with straws such as blowing feathers, pom poms, and ping pong balls. *Cutting the straws in half may make it easier for your child to blow and point at a target. – Smell the flowers, blow the 40 birthday candles – Tracing your hand to breath – Using rubber tubing or long straws to blow bubbles in the bath
Calming Activities: Engaging your Child • The Mouth is a power regulator too! This is why we see kids like bottles and soothers and chewing/sucking on things • Sucking input gives strong deep pressure input to the mouth and brain • Mouth exercise, leaning on jaw
Calming Activities: Engaging your Child • Sucking Activities: – Using short straws to eat snacks such as pudding, yogurt, applesauce, etc. – Sucking/chewing on special “chewlery” or special pendant around the neck – Sucking on the end of a pen or rubber end – Snack carrots, apples, pretzel
Calming Activities: Deep Pressure • Deep pressure massage is often very calming. Also special program with a surgical brush therapressure program • Weighted items provide this deep pressure blankets, lap pads, vests, snakes, etc. • Creating a “womb like” space to retreat to is often helpful • Slow linear rocking in a rocking chair • Lowering your voice ME Moves • Using a drum with rhythm may help with calming
Calming Power Tools – Environmental Considerations • Considering the environment is often Things to consider: – Lighting -fluorescent lighting is “annoying” to the body, especially if there is also flickering! • Dim the lights, use flame resistant light covers to deflect lights, get rid of fluorescent lights, provide lamps as lighting, use natural light
Calming Power Tools – Environmental Considerations – Visual distractions lots of stuff on the walls, on shelves, etc. is actually telling the body to pay attention and register all the stuff. Try covering bookshelves with a solid sheet to limit distractions, clean up clutter if possible, organize things into special bins for intended purpose > that way you can take out limited things at a time and teach child to clean up before taking out another bin. • Painting rooms “cool” colours such as blue or green. (Bright colours can be alerting)
Calming Power Tools – Environmental Considerations – Noise Lots of noise in your home, community, etc. We are multi-taskers by nature! • Turn off the TV/music, etc. • Try soothing sounds like a table fountain, methodical ticking sound, a rain stick, nature sounds CD, etc. • Try out regulating music with regulating beat (examples shown) drumming Music • Try out noise cancelling headphones, an ipod with favorite music, or earphones
What is Sensory Processing or Sensory Integration ? ● We are able to make an “adaptive response” and keep our teeter totter (our body) balanced or “regulated” ● For many kids this is very hard to do!
What can I do to help my child ? ● Including regular calming times during the day may be helpful to keep their “teeter totter” balanced ● Calming input may do a lot to “prevent” meltdowns and overload from sensory input ● Calming strategies will likely be useful to pass on as hints to others about how to support your child’s optimal functioning
Examples Student Examples sensory progress Unified Dance Marathon- Students with and without intellectual disabilities join together Mn Special Olympics
Resource List Sensory Processing Issues: strategies you can try at Home by Understood Team. https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/sensory-processing-issues/sensory-processing-issue s-strategies-you-can-try-at-home Sensory Processing Issues https://childmind.org/article/sensory-processing-issues-explained/ Sensory Smart Parent by Nancy Peske http://www.sensorysmartparent.com/sensory-diet Help your Child with Sensory Issues During the Holiday http://www.sensorysmartparent.com/single-post/2016/12/16/Help-Your-Child-with-Sensory-Issues-During-the-Holidays Learning activities from a OT and mom to do at home http://www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/ OT blog on varies topics on right side (ie feeding, haircuts, sensory etc) http://mamaot.com/about/ Sensory Processing Disorder www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/adult-SPD-checklist.html
THANKS FOR COMING QUESTIONS
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