Thanks so much for this beautiful, simple idea sent to us by one of our families. Have you tried making and using a glitter-filled calm down bottle timer to help your little ones? It’s easy to put a Christmas theme into them by using festive colours and adding seasonal themed sequins or beads. With so many versions on the internet, here is a blog post…
Christmas time in school can be difficult for children with additional needs, changes in routine and new experiences can be hard to manage. Here is some advice from Its a Tink Thing with ideas for helping autistic children to be included in the Christmas play. How to help an autistic child to manage the school Christmas play
“Early trauma is stored in the body via the senses, this is why therapy through the senses is effective.” Smith, K BPD and SI 2004 Occupational Therapists are ideally placed to work through play and via the senses to promote the development of healthy neurological pathways and structures; impacting the development of sensory motor skills and abilities that underpin our ability to move, learn, play,…
The ASI Wise lecture team have been at Abbot’s Lea School in Liverpool this weekend with a fantastic group of committed and enthusiastic occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and teachers exploring the use of sensory strategies and Ayres’ Sensory Integration therapy to support children, young people and adults mental and wellbeing health. Experiential learning opportunities, embedded into the course, help participants to understand their own sensory…
The first Sensory Ladders were made in 2001 for adults with sensory integration difficulties receiving help with mental health difficulties in Cornwall. Influenced by the paediatric Alert Program, they offered therapists a way to combine Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and Ayres’ Sensory Integration, addressing the development of the person’s self-awareness in collaboration with ward staff on an acute psychiatric inpatient unit. The need to start with the…
Is your stress changing someone else’s brain? A research study by Jaideep Bains and a team at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI), at the University of Calgary, has suggested that stress can be transmitted from one person to another, changing the brain of the other person too. The study shows that social contact by female mice reverses the effects, but not for male mice. A full article “Social…
Wow, this is so powerful, honest and well written. I love the air hostesses analogy, I have used this idea myself when traveling but this blog post has helped me to see how it applies to parenting too. Our little ones look to us for cues as to how they should process big emotions when things get tricky for them. When we stay calm in the…
“How and why is anxiety related to sensory processing difficulties? What is the relationship? Why are they often co-morbid?” One of the parents we support through our facebook parents group recently asked this question, it made me stop and think, below is the answer I wrote to her. Hi, this is a really good question, and a tricky one to explain as a parent. Here…
Last week I found a copy of a therapy review that a young person wrote a few years ago. “My sensory me is about me – and only me. It’s not about anybody else. It helps me be me. I don’t worry about what other people think I should be. I am starting to like me now. I’m not so sad anymore. Knowing why I’m different…
This feature article was written by Claire Smith, one of the first UK OT’s to deliver Sensory Integration alongside Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). I am delighted to introduce Claire to you, as she was one of the first people I ever lectured about how to apply Sensory Integration’s in Mental Health. That was way back in 2004 and tonight she features on a BBC Documentary…
