Retained primitive reflexes are immature movement patterns that can often have effects on a child’s overall development. Naturally, these reflexes should “integrate” or disappear during infancy. When a reflex is retained, more mature movement patterns are not developed, which can have an effect on sensory integration, posture, executive functioning skills, and overall neuroplasticity. Recognizing and treating these retained reflexes can have a big impact on a child’s overall development.
Snowy days provide great opportunities for heavy work proprioceptive input! Proprioception refers to our sense of awareness of body position, which our bodies process by receiving input through the muscles and joints. This type of input is typically calming for most children, but can also be alerting for some children. Proprioceptive input generally occurs through heavy work activities that involve deep pressure or weight through the muscles and joints.
Our sensory system is how we experience the world around us, and when we have difficulty processing one or more of these senses, our daily experiences can be hugely impacted. Children also use their senses to take in the world around them and learn new skills, whether through watching a bubble float by with their eyes, feeling gooey slime squish between their fingers, or tasting that delicious piece of cake with their tongue. While some of the senses are better known, there are others that are “hidden,” but equally as important in your child’s development. Some children have difficulty processing sensory information and producing a response that is appropriate, which can be seen through a variety of challenges in completing important daily activities. Understanding what our senses do for functioning is the first step in improving our ability to process them!
What is interoception?
It is likely that you learned about the “five senses” sometime early in your life: touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. These senses help you initially interact with the world around you and are important in helping you participate in everyday activities as an infant and young child. As you got older, you may have learned of the next two senses that are not as obvious but still very important to daily functioning: the proprioceptive and vestibular sense. Proprioception is the sense that identifies the position of your body in space with the use of receptors in your joints and muscles, and the vestibular sense helps us with movement, balance, and controlling our posture.
Interoception is the eighth sense we have; it is often called the “hidden sense” because it is not something we can see, but what we feel on the inside of our bodies. Imagine it is 2:00 in the afternoon and you have not eaten since 7:00 in the morning. Your stomach starts to make a growling noise. That is your interoceptive system working to let you know that you are hungry and that your body needs food to maintain a balanced state. When responding appropriately, you would recognize that sound and feeling to mean hunger, and you may go to the kitchen and get a snack.
Our interoceptive sense allows us to feel important body functions like hunger, pain, nausea, itch, needing to use the bathroom, coldness, and even emotional states such as nervousness, fear, or excitement. This sense uses internal signals that tell us how our body is feeling and can give clues to how we can respond to restore balance and find a place of comfort. Our bodies want to feel regulated, and how we get there may be different for everyone.
What does it look like when a child has difficulty with the interoceptive sense?
When the interoceptive sense is not processed appropriately, your child may have difficulty understanding what the signals inside of his/her body are trying to communicate and then will have difficulty responding appropriately to these messages.
Generally, this means challenges with:
Self-regulation, or the ability to monitor and manage your emotions and behaviors, is a vastly important aspect to consider with your child who may be struggling with interoception. For example, your child may not be able to feel or recognize getting angry; that is, a faster heartbeat, the face getting hot, or muscles tensing. Your child will then have difficulty identifying that these feelings mean anger, possibly not even until the emotion has already produced an inappropriate response. Without understanding and being aware of how these body sensations are making us feel, it will be difficult to identify the emotion being experienced and react in a way that is appropriate.
How can occupational therapists address interoception skills in children?
As daily occupations (i.e. using the bathroom, dressing for the weather, interacting with friends) are often affected by our understanding of our internal body sense, occupational therapists have a role in working with children who may have difficulty with the interoceptive sense. Occupational therapists (OTs) at PlayWorks follow guidelines from the Interoception Curriculum, a program designed by Kelly Mahler, a licensed occupational therapist and expert in interoception.
Using a step-by-step framework, OTs work to improve awareness of sensations within the body by introducing body experiments and body checks. These activities seek to improve your child’s understanding of how his/her body feels and can enable him/her to respond appropriately to improve participation in daily activities. Following this curriculum, OTs may also use a visual representation of the body to aid in recognizing and understanding body signs. This can be accomplished by using a visual drawing of a person with different body parts, combined with a list of different sensations or describing words. This will enable your child to practice matching the descriptor words to different body parts to increase understanding and connection of internal body cues and daily activities.
What can I do to support interoception in my child?
While interoception should be addressed in therapy, you can also support these challenges while at home. It will be helpful to start labeling body language as you notice it during different activities. For example, you can say, “I see that your breathing is getting heavy and your face has become a little red. I think you might be feeling angry.” This may help to link specific body language to emotions that they are feeling.
Additionally, you can try out some mindfulness activities, such as meditation, yoga, or reading a book centered around being mindful. While doing so, you can point out or ask how their body is feeling when they are doing these different activities to bring awareness to internal body cues. While this may be a challenging sense to understand for some children, there are many ways we can work with you and your child to increase his/her knowledge and recognition of these cues to improve participation in daily activities!
Questions or concerns?
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s interoceptive sense, please contact us at info@playworkschicago.com or 773-332-9439.
Molly Ross
Occupational Therapy Student Intern
References:
Interoception: The Eighth Sensory System (2016). Retrieved from https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/b303b5_ab07aaedc04c45b3a96e519fc262ecd1.pdf
Mahler, K., McLaughlin, E., & Anson, D. (2020). Interoception Across Varying Degrees of Mental Wellness. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 74(4_Supplement_1), 7411505251p1-7411505251p1. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2020.74S1-PO9513
Photo Credit: Ketit Subiyanto via https://www.pexels.com
Ever wonder why most of us have a baby photo with food all over our hands and faces? An important part of processing our world is through touch, even from a young age. Our sense of touch gives us information about our environment and the characteristics of our surroundings. We are able to determine if something is hot, cold, sticky, dry, soft, smooth, and so on! Messy play is a vital part of child development as our touch processing feeds into our skills such as motor planning, body awareness, visual-motor skills, fine motor skills, and more. At the moment with our schools and businesses closed many of us may be stuck indoors as we quarantine at home. While our current focus might be keeping our hands and homes clean, we can find ways to continue promoting our tactile sensory processing and get messy safely!
Our sensory processing abilities determine how we respond to tactile input. Your child may demonstrate sensitivity or avoidance to tactile input, such as withdrawing their hands when they get messy or splaying their fingers outward when they engage with wet textures. Maybe your child craves tactile input and you have a hard time keeping their hands clean or to themselves. Either way, incorporating messy play or multi-sensory experiences into their day can help them learn to process and respond to tactile input in order to better participate in grooming, meal time, bath time, and other daily routines!
Sensory Materials from Home:
You can always try to repurpose materials that you already have in your home to promote messy play. Try filling up a plastic bin at home with any of the following. You can switch out the material weekly to continue providing a range of tactile sensory experiences.
Messy Play Activities at Home:
Make messy play part of your child’s daily routine by adding it to their sensory diet activities or designating a day for messy food play at meal time. Increasing your child’s experience with messy play will help them learn how to process and respond to tactile input and tolerate a variety of textures and materials. It can also be a motivating way to engage children when you are stuck indoors.
Questions or concerns?
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s responses to tactile or sensory input, please contact us at info@playworkschicago.com or 773-332-9439.
Robyn Geist, MS, OTR/L
Occupational Therapist
Photo Credit: JBryson via istockphoto.com
Mealtime can be stressful, often with your child challenging your attempts to have them try new foods. Some days, your child may not go to the table or sit in their chair long enough to even offer new foods! However, establishing a set routine and regular meals may be the first steps to mealtime success.
What can a mealtime routine look like?
Why is mealtime so challenging for my child? And why is a routine and family meals so important?
Eating is one of the most challenging sensory activities for children. When we eat, all eight senses are working and integrating eight new pieces of information. The properties of the food change as we eat, for instance, as part of our five senses, the taste and smell changes as we chew. Additionally, our sense for self-movement and body position is working to use different amounts of jaw pressure. Our sense for balance and spatial orientation is working to re-adjust our balance as we chew. Lastly, our sense of the internal state of the body is being put to the test by requiring that we track the changes to our stretch receptors (on the stomach) to the changes to our appetite. Processing each of those sensory changes can be and is difficult for many children. Furthermore, eating is a multisensory experience; therefore, we need to help children’s sensory systems to be regulated before, during, and after meals to increase their feeding skills and sensory tolerance for new foods.
What can I do?
If your child is demonstrating some behaviors before or during mealtime and/or is a picky eater/problem feeder, consider contacting one of our speech-language pathologist or occupational therapists, who can provide your family with helpful tips and tricks to make mealtime less stressful and more fun!
Questions or concerns?
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s mealtime routine or feeding skills, please contact us at info@playworkschicago.com or 773-332-9439.
Reference: Toomey, Kay A.. 2008/2010. Family Meals.
Kay A. Toomey, Ph.D. & Lindsay Beckerman, OTR/L., 2016. Explanation of The Role of Sensory Therapy In Advancing Feeding Goas.
Photo Credit: Jennifer Murray and amsw photography via pexels.com
“Why was my child recommended for occupational therapy, they don’t have a job!” You might have many questions if your child has completed an occupational therapy evaluation and was recommended to receive occupational therapy services. What does this mean, exactly?
What is occupational therapy?
The term “occupational” does not refer to one’s employment, in this instance. Occupationscan be defined as activities that support the health, well-being, and development of an individual (American Occupational Therapy Association, 2014). An occupational therapist’s job is to increase the engagement and participation in meaningful daily activities that support your child’s learning, growing, and most of all, fun! There are a wide variety of circumstances that may affect your child’s optimal engagement in day-to-day activities at home, at school, or in the community.
How is occupational therapy going to help my child?
The benefit of occupational therapy is that practitioners are equipped for focusing therapy on a widevariety of skills required in your child’s daily life, such as:
What does it mean if my child was recommended occupational therapy?
Receiving a recommendation for therapy can be difficult and may bring about many questions and concerns regarding your child. Common concerns after receiving a recommendation for your child to receive therapy are “Will my child be singled-out from their peers?” or “Will my child always need therapy?” When your child receives a recommendation for therapy, it does not necessarily mean that there is something wrong. A recommendation for occupational therapy does mean that a trained therapist has noted suspected concerns that warrant further evaluation. As an occupational therapist, many times I am asked, “Do you work with children with disabilities?” and my answer is, “Yes I do, but not exclusively!” Just as pediatric occupational therapists work on a wide variety of skills, we also work with a wide variety within the pediatric population. An occupational therapist will utilize a holistic approach to empower your child and your family so they can live their life to the fullest in their daily routines, school activities, and excitement within the community.
Questions or concerns?
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s engagement in meaningful daily activities, please contact us at info@playworkschicago.com or 773-332-9439.
Reference: American Occupational Therapy Association. (2014). Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain & process (3rd ed.). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 68(Suppl. 1), S1–S48. http://dx.doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2014.682006
Photo Credit: Photo by Thiago Cerqueira on Unsplash
Summertime is filled with distinct noises, like that of a fire engine in the Fourth of July parade, fireworks exploding in the sky, or the steady hum of crickets chirping in the yard. For some children, these sounds can be quite stressful. Like the other sensory systems (touch, taste, smell, sight, etc), your child’s sense of hearing, or their auditory system, takes in information, processes it, and produces an external response. Sometimes, this information isn’t processed correctly. In these cases, your child may demonstrate hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity to sound, and those fun summertime activities become a source of anxiety for your little one.
What is hypersensitivity?
If your child seems to overreact to everyday sounds or seems easily distracted by noise that you are able to tune out, she is demonstrating auditory hypersensitivity. Your child may experience an intense fear of mechanical items with “whirring” sounds, such as vacuum cleaners, hand dryers or flushing toilets in public restrooms, blender, hairdryer, and coffee grinder. She may overreact to unexpected sounds by covering her ears or crying. She may seem to be overly tuned in to background noise in the environment, such as the fan spinning or the clock ticking.
What is hyposensitivity?
If your child seems to enjoy loud noises in his environment, demonstrates difficulty figuring out where a sound is coming from (localizing), and/or has difficulty figuring out what a sound is (distinguishing), he is demonstrating auditory hyposensitivity. Your child may constantly create noises with his mouth throughout the day. He may prefer to keep the television very loud, but become upset when others speak loudly. He may have difficulty hearing and responding when his name is called, especially from another room.
What causes these kinds of sensory auditory dysfunction?
The stapedius is a middle ear muscle that contracts in response to loud noise in order to protect the small hair follicles on our inner ears. Scientists say that sensory-based auditory issues may be due to a poorly-functioning stapedius. The middle and inner ear muscle systems are also important in the function of other sensory structures, such as the vestibular system – which determines your child’s equilibrium and balance.
What can I do?
If your child is demonstrating some of the behaviors above, consider contacting one of our occupational therapists, who can provide your family with helpful tips and tricks to minimize distraction, utilize noise-cancelling items, work through difficult school-based tasks, and more! If your child is demonstrating difficulty with language interpretation, difficulty learning to read, and/or a speech delay that are accompanied with the symptoms listed above, he may be experiencing Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). APD is dysfunction in the brain’s ability to translate sounds. An audiologist can help identify the issue and provide suggestions for next steps.
Questions or concerns?
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s responses to noise, please contact us at info@playworkschicago.com or 773-332-9439.
Reference: Dodd, George. (2002). Distinguishing sound from noise- the significance of attention and noise sensitivity. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 112, 2243. 25 October 2002. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4778910
Messy play is an essential part of child development. Our sense of touch, or tactile processing, sends information to our brain about the properties of objects in our environment. Our tactile sense provides vital information skills such as body awareness, academic learning, motor planning, visual discrimination, and social skills. Children can discover and learn more about their world using their hands and feet, which can sometimes lead to getting dirty!
Your child may experience sensory over-responsivity, or observable behavior involving a quick or intense response to a sensory experience that others usually perceive as nonthreatening. This could include becoming upset during activities such as nail clipping, haircuts, bathing, and/or eating. When your child experiences sensory over-responsivity on their feet, you might have noticed them avoiding going barefoot in sand or grass. Helping integrate additional sensory-rich experiences into your child’s life can lead to more engagement and enjoyment with feeding, bathing, and most importantly, play!
Activities to encourage tactile sensory play with hands and feet:
Bubbles: simply having your child popping bubbles is a sensory experience for their hands (and feet!). To incorporate messy play with their feet, you can have your child “wait” until the bubbles hit the ground, and have them pop them by stepping or stomping onto them! This is a great warm-up activity to lead into more sensory-rich play experiences.
Sensory Bins: filling an empty storage bin with objects such as sand or dry beans and placing small toys inside to dig for and interact with provides a fun tactile sensory experience. For an additional sensory experience with the olfactory system, or smell, fill a sensory bin with coffee beans!
Finger Painting: Take away the paintbrushes and bring on the mess! Incorporate various textures into the paint, such as mixing sand into it. Allow your child to create pictures from both their hand and foot prints for an even sensory-filled experience!
Mess-Free Painting: for a tactile experience without the mess, all you will need is a large plastic bag, paint, and masking tape. Place a few drops of paint (multiple colors for a rainbow effect!) inside of the plastic bag and ensure it is sealed. Tape the plastic bag with paint onto a window and allow your child to use their finger to form shapes and pictures on the bag.
If your child dislikes washing their hands and/or dislikes bathing, you can try the following activities:
Wash Station: create a “wash station” in a Tupperware container, small storage bin, or even your sink for a car wash or pet wash with soapy water. This is a great tactile sensory activity for children who don’t enjoy the suds during bath time. Introducing the soapy on a smaller scale (and embedded in play!) will allow them to become more comfortable with the sensory experience.
Shaving Cream: This can be used on a table top or even in the bathtub to contain the mess and with both hands and feet! You can belt out Frozen and build a “snow man” with your child using the shaving cream. Additional Bonus: If you are also working on handwriting or letter formation, you can take off the pressure with pen and paper and practice in the shaving cream!
Water Painting: You can simply give your child a bowl of water and a paintbrush to paint the sidewalk, the fence, and better yet, their body. This activity incorporates the tactile sensory play with water and the feeling of the paintbrush on their skin.
If your child dislikes going to the beach and/or playing in the sandbox you can try the following activities:
Kinetic Sand: Kinetic Sand is available in many themes and variations that may interest your child such as, Frozen, glitter sand, construction zone with trucks, dinosaur fossils, and more! Kinetic Sand has a texture that nearly feels “wet” to the touch; however, it is not and is easily moldable. This is a great activity to incorporate the feet as well, such as making footprints in the sand!
Sugar Castles: using brown sugar is a sweet way to introduce the rough texture of sand! Incorporate measuring cups and popsicle sticks to build sugar castles. This is also a good opportunity to introduce feet into play if your child does not like to walk in the sand at the beach or in a sandbox.
Tips:
1. Start Small: introducing these experiences might be overwhelming, so starting in small amounts can make your child more comfortable to interact with them.
2. Get Out: taking these activities outdoors can alleviate any worries about making a mess inside the home in addition to experience the sensory-rich outdoors!
3. Bring Friends: If your child has a preferred stuffed animal or toy that also has hands and feet, have them tag along! Allowing your child to immerse their preferred toy into sensory play they might initially be hesitant about can be encouraging for them.
4. Join in On the Fun: There is nothing more encouraging or entertaining than your child seeing their caregiver act like a child themselves! Modeling the very play you wish for your child to engage in can be enticing enough for them to participate!
Reference: Kranowitz, Carol Stock. (2005). The out-of-sync child: recognizing and coping with sensory processing disorder. New York: A Skylight Press Book/A Perigee Book.
Photo Credit: Sharon McCutcheon via Pexels
What is the vestibular system?
The vestibular system refers to the nervous system’s mechanisms for registering and interpreting movement and relation to gravity. Structures in the inner ear (including hairs, crystals, fluids, and small organs) receive information about movement and balance to send to our brains to help us understand our relationship with gravity. The vestibular system is our body’s primary way to organize sensory information, so abnormalities in how we integrate this information can affect how we perceive information from all our other senses. Some children can’t get enough vestibular input, and actively seek out jumping, climbing, and swinging. Other children are hypersensitive to vestibular input and may become irritable, scared, or avoidant with simple activities such as being laid down for a diaper change or lifted in the air. For hypersensitive children, small amounts of movement may feel as exaggerated as riding a rollercoaster.
In severe cases, children with vestibular hypersensitivities may experience gravitational insecurity, characterized by emotional responses movements which are extremely disproportionate to a realistic possibility of falling. These children may avoid physical tasks, try to keep their feet on the ground, and become extremely upset with unexpected movements. Due to their unreliable relationship with gravity, their brains are wired to perform protective responses against the danger they perceive. These children may try to flee the situation, freeze and shut down, or fight and tantrum until the perceived danger subsides.
Children with vestibular sensitivities often have trouble tolerating the following activities:
Natalie Machado, MS, OTR/L
Occupational Therapist
References:
Biel, L., & Peske, N. (2009). Raising a sensory smart child: The definitive handbook for helping your child with sensory processing issues. London, England: Penguin Books, Ltd.
Photo credit: Sarah Pflug via burst.shopify.com
Do you fear letting your baby get messy? Can’t stand the sight of food in their hair or on the floor and dread the work that it means for you afterwards? You are not alone! Lots of parents have a really hard time allowing their baby to be a complete and total mess while eating. But did you know that this mess is more than just a headache for you later on? It is actually a critical learning experience for your little one! So next time you cringe at the sight of your toddler flinging applesauce across the room or your baby dropping yet another yogurt-covered spoon on the floor, remember that you are helping their development.
Below is a list of reasons why you should let your little one get messy while eating.
Messy eating…
Tips to help the messy eating routine:
Kelly Fridholm, MCD, CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist
Additional resources/related articles:
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