• Indoor Activities
• Making Sense of the Senses

Here are some suggestions for indoor activities to help keep kids engaged, and at the same time practicing some great skills!

All you need for this fun activity is a small plate or bowl, a plastic drinking straw, dish washing liquid and tap water. Place two drops of dish washing liquid in the center of a plate or bowl. Run water over the dish soap to create foam or bubbles. Have children point their straws into the water, and blow softly and gently into the water. Slow and steady will create huge bubbles!

Use any box that closes or has a lid, a shoebox is ideal. Cut a hole in the side of the box large enough for a child's hand to fit inside. Place an object inside the box and see if they can guess what it is. If they can't guess right away, let them ask questions or provide them with clues until they figure it out.

If you have kids, you need one of these! You can find shoe box sized plastic containers with lids from your local dollar store. Stock the box with crayons, markers, colored pencils, small plain paper pads, envelopes, stickers, stencils, a pencil sharpener and an eraser. This box should be kept stocked so that when needed, everything will be at your fingertips. Explain to children that this is a "special" writing box and that everything that comes out, must go back in for the next time they want to get creative.

The easiest form of this requires only a paper lunch bag and crayons or markers. Simply draw on a face and you have a puppet! To make the characters more elaborate, decorate with yarn for hair, buttons for eyes, and glitter for cheeks. Ribbon can be added to the hair or made into a bow tie for the "neck". Draw on eyelashes and lips with colorful markers.

Save old magazines and catalogs and store them in a cabinet just for this purpose. Have the kids cut out pictures and paste them onto a piece of cardboard or construction paper. You can let them cut out whatever they want, or assign each child a letter of the alphabet or a theme to go by for a more challenging project. Keep a trash can close by for the scraps and be sure to keep a stock of glue sticks on hand!

Place a handful of dry, uncooked pasta, such as ziti, rotini or farfelle, into a plastic zipper baggie. Add a tablespoon of white vinegar and 2-3 drops of food coloring. Close the baggie and have the kids shake the bag until the pasta is completely colored. Spread out onto a paper plate or paper towel and allow to dry. Use several baggies to create different colors. Once the pasta is dry, kids can use yarn to string together pieces to make necklaces and bracelets, or glue them to paper plates or construction paper to create a work of art.

Play a family memory game with your kids by asking questions like "Who has a brother named Ari?" and "Who is married to Aunt Tammy?" Look through old photo albums and see if kids can guess who is who in each picture.

You can do this out loud or have kids write their entries on paper. Someone starts the story with "Once upon a time there lived a...", that person chooses the character and setting (princess in a far away land). The next child tells the next part of the story, and so on around the room, the story changing with each new addition.

 

Trying to solve a tedious trigonometric problem on paper is difficult enough when one thinks about it. Now imagine that the pen you’re holding is covered in sandpaper. Or the buzz of the fluorescent light above you is so loud, it’s deafening. Or even worse, trying to find the solution while feeling seasick. Would you be able to finish the task at hand through these distractions?

While this might seem to be nothing but an exercise of the imagination for most of us, it is a daily occurrence for some children who have a condition called sensory integration dysfunction (SID). For these children, the world is a confusing, threatening place they’re not comfortable to be in, much less to explore. They are unable to correctly find meaning in the sensations entering their systems, or organize their behavior to successfully interact with the world. These children feel lost and overwhelmed in their surroundings, and view the normal tasks of childhood as insurmountable challenges. Parents frequently perceive that these children are out-of-sync with others and feel helpless when the child has meltdowns in the most inappropriate situations.

To properly understand the problem, one needs to know how a person’s sensory system works. Ask a man on the street what his senses are, and he will be quick to answer the basic five – vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses provide us with "external" input – information about our surroundings, such as what the table in front of us looks and feels like, or what kind of bread is baking in the oven.

What is not readily apparent is that there are other sensory systems that serve as the base from which the other five senses work. These systems – the vestibular sense (subserving balance and movement) and proprioception (for muscle and joint sense) – provide a person with the “internal” information of our body’s position with respect to gravity, and where our limbs are in relation to our other body parts. They determine how comfortable we are in participating with the outside world and if not optimally functioning, would also cause the other senses to misfire.

How the sensory systems take in all the information, then combine them with past experiences and memories is what is termed as sensory integration. Considering how complex this process is, it is amazing how time and time again the brain can organize all input from the sensory systems simultaneously, present it to a person’s nervous system in a way it will find useful, then formulate a response to the demands of the environment – with these occurrences all occurring at the same time. This process goes on all the time in our brains, so our nervous system is always in a state of activity. In children with SID, this process is imbalanced and inconsistent, causing problems in learning and relating with their friends and loved ones. The roles they need to fulfill during their childhood – to play, be a student, and form friendships with others – are severely curtailed, setting up the stage for further difficulties in their teenage years and into adulthood.

Difficulties in sensory integration take a myriad of forms. Some children may be overly sensitive to some sensations, as in a child who gets easily upset with movement on a swing; while others need greater than normal amounts of sensory input for it to even register in their nervous systems. Still some cannot correctly distinguish salient sensory information from all other input from the environment, making the child easily distracted by ambient sounds and sights. A child may present as hyperactive, have poor balance and awkward coordination. Disorganized behavior is also common – a child may present as impulsive, lacking safety awareness, or have difficulties in adjusting to new situations or following directions.

One must be cautious with a labeling a child with SID however, because not every child who has trouble learning has difficulties in sensory integration. One needs to consult an experienced occupational therapist (OT) to determine its presence, and to differentiate what might be a neurological response from misbehaviors. Extensive knowledge and training in sensory integration make OTs the most reliable professionals to evaluate a child’s sensory needs and formulate the appropriate intervention strategies. The expansive nature of sensory integration, however, requires that many professionals in the healthcare and educational fields collaborate in the treatment of a child with SID. Schools and treatment centers now have specially-trained physical therapists, speech-language pathologists and special education teachers working alongside an OT for this purpose. Pediatric dentists, psychologists, play therapists are also some of the many people who have played important roles in the home and school settings.

To encourage the development of sensory integration skills, a child needs an environment with the "just right" challenge – one that is specially designed to meet his needs, while not overwhelming him and causing his fragile nervous system to shut down. A child is provided with therapeutic activities under the guise of play, encouraging him to play interactively in a manner that is organized and functional. In a way, a child is given the structure in which he can practice his skills, while providing him the necessary freedom to explore and have fun. In Answers to Questions Teachers Ask about Sensory Integration, Jane Koomar, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA states: "By balancing structure and freedom, the therapist helps the child to develop both his neural organization and his inner direction. The child is given much control over therapy as he can handle, as long as his activity is therapeutic. The therapist controls the environment, while the child controls his actions."

This balancing act of having the child direct the therapeutic process, while the therapist makes constant but appropriate adjustments to the environment, forms the core of sensory integration intervention. Developmental skills of self-care, writing and gross motor play are best taught this way, with therapists and teachers helping the children along in overcoming obstacles by themselves and maximizing their potential for development. And with these professionals working closely with the children, they also form warm, dynamic relationships that are vital for development of social skills.

Most of the improvements noted may be subtle at first – it may be as simple as increased eye contact between the child and his parents, or a greater eagerness to climb over playground equipment. The implications of these changes are far-reaching, though. An improved attitude about one’s self often translates into better command of his life, because a child will have more control of his own reactions, and greater self-confidence to relate to his environment and peers. He will feel less anxious about exploring the world around him and, in his own time, grow into the responsible young adult that all parents strive for their children to be.