Sensory stimulation
Supportive impact on the child
About a sensory stimulation
Under the term sensory stimulation, we mean stimulation of individual human senses – vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Sensory stimulation is an important part of supporting a child. There is a strong relationship between motor skills and sensory perception. Sensory perception is essential for the proper motor function of the body.To ensure effective sensory perception, coordinated muscle movement is required. Both systems are interconnected and mutually influence each other. Sensory perception and motor skills serve as a gateway to mental functions (emotions, thinking, learning, etc.), and mental processes, in turn, affect the quality of sensory perception and our motor skills. Effective work with motor skills enables high-quality sensory perception, and good sensory perception is the foundation for quality motor functions. Working on sensory perception and motor skills positively influences mental functions.
Why is it important to stimulate the senses?
So that children can learn effectively, they should feel comfortable in their own bodies. They need their brains to accurately evaluate incoming information from their senses.
With specific learning disorders, ADHD, autism spectrum disorders (ASD), impaired communication skills, and other difficulties, inaccurate processing of sensory stimuli is often associated in the vast majority of cases (sensory processing disorder may also occur in isolation without the presence of another official diagnosis).
These are difficulties that do not have a discernible cause in a significant disruption of the central nervous system. In case of persistent primary reflexes (especially the Moro reflex), sensory signal processing disorders are always present.
What difficulties may arise for children in this case?
- Inappropriately intense reactions to stimuli and aggressive behavior
- Motor clumsiness
- Quick onset of fatigue and irritability or, conversely, apathy in a busy environment
- Inability to maintain attention in a busy environment
- Visual stress (the child is bothered, for example, by the contrast of black letters on white paper)
- Psychomotor restlessness (the child cannot stay still)
- Refusal or, conversely, excessive seeking of physical contact
- Inappropriate reactions to stimuli
- Speech difficulties
- Poor balance and body coordination, difficulties with graphomotor skills
- Hypersensitivity to certain textures, surfaces, etc.
- Eating problems (avoidance of new foods, excessive selectivity in foods)
- Hypersensitivity to various smells, etc.