CONTRIBUTORS
Why should all Early Years practitioners know about Sensory Processing and Sensory Integration?
This month, in our ongoing collaboration with Edge Hill University curated by ALICIA BLANCO-BAYO, Early Years Lecturer and WTEY Programme Leader at the University’s Faculty of Education, we’re delighted to hear from Dr JULIE SEALY, Senior Lecturer in the Early Years Department of the Faculty of Education.
In simple terms, sensory integration refers to the way sensory input is integrated within complex neurological, biological and physiological systems within the body and brain to produce corresponding behavioural
outputs. Sensory processing challenges are not well recognised within early
education but infant and child mental health professionals have been advocating for Sensory Processing Disorder to be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) for many years. Sensory processing disorder is associated with a diagnosis of Autism and sensory over-responsiveness is associated with a diagnosis of ADHD (Ben-Sasson et al, 2017). Whilst many children do not have a formal diagnosis of SPD, they may have serious sensory processing and integration challenges that derail their everyday functioning at home and at school. It is important for all early childhood practitioners to understand how sensory processing challenges can disrupt children’s successful participation in functional daily life routines. Most often, these challenges present as behavioural issues and a lack of understanding of sensory processing results in these children being labelled as problem children, labels that often follow them throughout their school life (Bodison & Parham, 2018). Practitioners can incorporate simple strategies into their classroom
‘toolbox’, but the first step is to identify the child’s unique sensory profile. To do this they first need to observe the child’s visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, proprioceptive, vestibular and interoceptive sensory processing capacities. For example, how does the child respond to auditory stimuli? Do they get overwhelmed in noisy spaces or do they seem to not tune in to sounds around them? Visually, is the child easily distracted? To create an individual sensory profile the practitioner will look at each of the eight senses identified above and determine if the child is over or under-responsive in each area. We may see these children lash out when overwhelmed or become sensory avoidant and shut down. Most often the behavioural issues presented in the setting are related to the child’s proprioceptive sensory processing challenges. One of the lesser-known senses, our proprioceptive sense refers to the way our body and brain takes in and processes the sensory input coming in through our muscles and joints. Children who have an under-responsive proprioceptive system can present in two ways. They can look quite floppy with low muscle tone and seem somewhat disengaged. Alternatively, the child may actively seek more sensory input, they are always on the go, running, jumping climbing, crashing into things. These children might be identified as ‘difficult’, ‘aggressive’ or ‘hyper’ and in later years may receive ADHD labels. The challenge many practitioners face is learning how to give the child
the sensory input they need. What the ‘boisterous’ sensory seeking child needs is not to be told to ‘sit still’ and ‘be quiet’ when their body is craving input. These children need to be given the opportunity to get the input they crave, this can be on a trampoline, a ‘crash corner’, or just a ‘movement break’ to an outdoor space. Incorporating sensory based activities and resources in the classroom, such as ‘fidgets’, ‘wiggle seats’,‘chewies’, ‘lycra swings’ and a sensory ‘quiet corner’ or ‘sensory room’ can provide the child with the sensory input they crave. We now know from the extensive neuroscience literature that once the child’s emotional and stress systems are calm, they can then engage the higher level, executive functioning needed to stay on task in our classrooms. (Wild & Steel, 2018). Below are some useful websites. Be creative and ensure everyone benefits from an environment that supports sensory processing!
https://spdstar.org https://sensorykidsot.com
https://www.schoolmoves.com
https://www.griffinot.com/sensory-strategies-and-supports-for-the-classroom
https://www.sensoryfriendly.net/how-to-create-a-sensory-friendly-classroom/
18
www.education-today.co.uk Parental engagement in
science and STEM In her regular column this month, STEMtastic! founder KIRSTY BERTENSHAW offers some easy, practical ideas to encourage parental engagement in science and STEM.
Parents may not always be able to engage in their children’s learning easily, either through time restrictions or a lack of confidence, but parental engagement is beneficial to children and is recognised to have a sizable impact. Home learning tasks can be a great way to engage parents. Longer term projects can be difficult to keep going in the classroom, but they are one way to encourage parental involvement. Science experiments with plants take days to weeks to see results so these can be either prepared in school and taken home for completion, or students given the equipment to do the whole experiment at home. Science topics lend themselves well to this. An example would be
planting a bulb in a small pot, taking it home and keeping a diary of observations of growth over the next few weeks while watering the plant. For older students, packs of cress can be divided into four pieces to explore the effects of limiting factors. One piece would be watered as usual and given sunlight. One piece can be completely wrapped in cling film but watered to see the effects of limiting the access to carbon dioxide. Another piece can be wrapped in dark paper or placed in a box to prevent access to sunlight, but still given water and air (specifically carbon dioxide). The final piece would be denied water. Over the period of a week, the effect of limiting the variables can be observed. Cooking is a good way to encourage parental interaction and can
be a home learning activity too. Students can explore the effect of cooking a small amount of bread dough with yeast versus a small amount without yeast. Full instructions should be given to each student, and potentially small bags of ingredients too, to ensure each student can make the desired product. Exploring museums is a nice way to involve parents. As trips can
incur costs, and weekdays may be workdays for parents, virtual tours can be a good replacement. The Natural History Museum among others offers virtual tours of its galleries. As a home learning task, students could write a diary entry, draw pictures, or write a newspaper-style report on the galleries. After-school clubs that include parents and possibly siblings are
another way of creating family engagement. Allowing siblings to be attend can allow parents with multiple children to join in. This could include STEM clubs, science clubs, fun maths clubs or educational games clubs. Parental engagement with academic skills is important, but a
wider approach to involving parents and families in the school community will lay the foundation for academic involvement. A non- academic engagement strategy might use a part of school grounds as a community garden area. Parents and students would be responsible for growing plants and looking after the area. Flowering plants, seasonal plants and even crop plants could be grown. Not only does this give an opportunity for parents and students to spend time achieving an aim together, but they may acquire skills they can repeat at home as well as learning about what plants need for growth.
Kirsty is the founder of STEMtastic, an education consultancy with a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths
www.stemtastic.co.uk
February 2022
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