Sensory Processing from an Occupational Therapy Lens

Center for Inclusive Child Care9min

Gina Gibson

00:04

Welcome to Inclusion Matters produced by the Center for Inclusive Child Care, aka, CICC. Were located at Inclusivechildcare.og

Cindy Croft

00:22

Welcome to Inclusion Matters the podcast for the Center for Inclusive Child Care. This is Cindy Croft, Executive Director of the Center and I'm here with my colleague Priscilla Weigel, my assistant director. Hi, Priscilla. Hi Cindy and we're doing another podcast with Gina Gibson, the occupational therapist at Frazier in Minnesota. So welcome Gina.

Gina Gibson

00:42

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Cindy Croft

00:43

And so I'm sure our listeners who listened to the first pod cast are excited to hear more information about your role as an occupational therapists with children in and with childcare and parents. And particularly as we talk about sensory processing. As a it's, it's such a people have heard the phrase, and they probably seen different sensory issues in children. But there's still so much that we don't know about it. And in childcare, there's so much that can be done environmentally, to help kids be more successful. So I think people are looking for lots of answers. So what we want to do today to talk about sort of what you know about sensory processing disorder, and sort of what your field how your field sees it, and just help us understand it better.

Gina Gibson

01:32

Yeah, so sensory processing is definitely a tricky topic, because it's something that's so different for everyone. So when you think about sensory processing, that's something that we all do at all points of our day. So when sensory processing is working well, it kind of happens unconsciously, your body takes in this information from the environment, processes it and decides which information, we should respond to which information isn't really important, and we can ignore. So then we we know how to respond without even really having to think about it. So that when you hear a loud sound, maybe it's a siren or, or something that's trying to get your attention, you can turn and look, figure out where that sound is coming from, decide if that message is for you, and then how to respond. When sensory processing isn't working so well, there tends to be kind of a traffic jam from when the body receives that message to when the body responds to that message. So there might be a siren or something that's far away and you turn and you look, and all of a sudden you perceive that as being a threat to you or something that sends you into that fight or flight mode, and you might scream, you might cover your ears, you might need to run away and hide, even though that sound to the rest of the world wouldn't be that challenging. So it's that difficulty in responding to the information that the environment is giving Oh, that is a great explanation.

Priscilla W.

03:05

Yes, that's wonderful. Because you think of small children who don't can't articulate what's going on inside of them emotionally or physically. And to be able to help providers who are listening to note, those kinds of reactions can happen when there is that jam up in that processing. And oh, that was really a nice, visual, I'm picturing the sirens I'm picturing, you know that your body turning, that's really going to be helpful to folks to know, to have that. That's great. So when you think of some of those things that need that we need that processing, when you think of an early childhood classroom, a childcare facility, what are some things that might be bombarding a child who does have difficulty with sensory, you know, what are what are the things that could create a really challenging day?

Gina Gibson

03:54

Right, so if you are walking into that classroom, or whatever type of room that you are in, and if there are bright colored decorations and signs on the wall, and maybe there's brightly colored carpet, and then there might also be fluorescent lighting, which adds in components of both really bright light and a lot of kids can pick up a little bit of a buzzing sound, that's really hard for them to tune out. It might be kids who are moving really fast in all these different directions. And it's really hard for children to predict how other children are going to be responding to things and moving around and, and you might need to stand closer to people than you might like, and they might brush past you and touch you really lightly which is an alerting type of touch that can send you into that fight or flight mode. And I think it's interesting to point out that one piece of sensory input at one point in the day could have very different responses kind of based on what else has been happening in that day. So there's sort of a threshold for how much kids can handle. So if it's been a relatively easy day, they've had a lot of like good positive sensory input, and they hear that one loud sound, or they get that one light touch, they might not like it, they might kind of retreat a little bit, but then they can probably move on. But if it's been a day where they've been exposed to a bunch of new environments that kind of increased that anxiety level, and there have been a lot of those unknowns, and they've had a hard time understanding, then that same light touch or that same sound could result in a big sensory overload meltdown, because of everything that else that came along with it.

Priscilla W.

05:40

So how do you help kids be prepared? What are some things that you do in your time with them? And how can we help our listeners to note some of those behaviors or those, those triggers for the child to be trying to tell us, I need more, I need less. So what do we do?

Gina Gibson

05:59

As I think a lot of it is recognizing the signs that a child is starting to escalate, and being able to provide some of those sensory supports before it turns into that full meltdown. Or even if they're not showing signs of escalation, if you just take some sensory or motor breaks, or if you can anticipate that something is going to be a little challenging, and provide them with some nice calming input before you even think about moving to that next step. Those can all be some proactive ways to kind of help avoid some of those really tricky meltdowns, because kind of once you get to that point of no return that it's hard to pull back in. So motor brakes are a really good way to sneak in some nice heavy work and deep pressure activities. Some kids have specific sensory tools that are helpful, like a chewy, a weighted vest, a weighted blanket, so whatever is going to be helpful for that child, or things like if you know you're going to be going somewhere, that's going to be loud. If your child has noise cancelling headphones or something like that, that's helpful and calming to them. Having those ready ahead of time before you need them is going to be more helpful than trying to react once you've already had that sensory overload.

Priscilla W.

07:21

That's wonderful. So one of the our we have a coaching support program through our organization, and one of the coaches was working with a family childcare provider who had a child in her care, who was every day at kind of the same time after watching this process was escalating to that point. And so she and the coach worked together to develop this plan of doing some heavy work in before, you know, kind of in between different parts of the day. And so one day the coach arrived to the setting and the child was carrying a bag of apples. Just from one part of the kitchen to another and then the provider would hand her something else. So it was really not this really involved extra, you know, equipment needed intervention, but what it did is it just provided that input for that child to be able to say, okay, I can make it a little bit longer till we go outside and play. And so that was just one of those little things that you're describing, I think is just thinking through what would help this child? And what are the what are the tools that they need. Some of them from an occupational therapist, that would have to be a diagnosis, and they'd have to be signed off by you or someone else who has allowed for those those weighted materials. But there are other things that we can do. By, you know, wrapping up in a tight blanket and helping the child pull that tightly, or just having those noise cancelling headphones in the basket so that kids can access those.

Gina Gibson

08:46

So something as simple as sometimes we'll we'll make a little joke that the room is feeling small. So we need a child to come with us and help us push on the walls to make it bigger. So yeah, it really doesn't need to take equipment. It can, and that equipment can be helpful, but there are lots of ways to improvise with just your own body to give that deep pressure input that can be so calming and helpful.

Cindy Croft

09:08

Yeah, that's great. And I think that's a good way to close Gina, with that, that wonderful tip. So glad that you could be with us again, we're going to hopefully do a couple more in this series on both occupational therapy and emphasizing sensory processing. So thank you so much for being with us.

Gina Gibson

09:08

Yeah, thank you for having me. Thanks.

Gina Gibson

09:32

That's all for now. See you next time.

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