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Benefits of Physical Therapy for Children With ASD

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 14:29:19 GMT

Physical therapy can be an invaluable tool for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It helps ease physical and sensory issues associated with ASD, like difficulty with coordination, balance, muscle strength, and sensory processing.

Physical therapy helps improve motor skills, communication abilities, problem-solving skills, social skills, and overall well-being. When combined with speech and occupational therapy, physical therapy can help a child with ASD gain greater independence.

What Do Physical Therapists Do?

Physical therapists are skilled professionals trained in assessing and treating musculoskeletal and neuromotor issues. They use age-appropriate techniques such as massage, joint mobilization, exercises, stretching, balance activities, and aquatic therapy to improve movement patterns and reduce pain or discomfort. Physical therapists also assess a child’s physical environment and can recommend special equipment or modifications for safety, independence, and ease of movement.

Why Would a Child With ASD Need Physical Therapy?

Kids with ASD often have multiple sensory and motor issues like hypersensitivity, joint hypermobility, low muscle tone, or muscle and joint tightness. Physical therapy can improve motor skills and balance to make day-to-day activities easier.

Physical therapy can also provide children with a safe space where they can express themselves physically without judgment from others. Through physical therapy, children can practice managing their emotions when facing physical challenges. They can also learn self-regulation strategies to cope with the frustration they may feel when their bodies won’t do what they want them to do.

How Can Physical Therapy Help?

Physical therapy can help improve a child’s sense of control, coordination, and balance. It improves flexibility and muscle strength. Physical therapy can improve an awkward gait and help a child with ASD gain confidence in physical education and sports. Through hands-on activities and games, often using sensory integration therapy equipment , physical therapists can help children with ASD practice their problem-solving skills in a supportive environment.

Physical therapists may also introduce play activities, such as catch and other ball games, to help children with ASD interact with peers in a fun, safe environment.

Physical therapy can be an effective tool for helping children with autism spectrum disorder reach their full potential. Along with speech and occupational therapy, physical therapy can help a child gain independence and lead a fulfilling life.

If you think that your child could benefit from physical therapy, consult with your doctor and ask for a referral to a qualified physical therapist who specializes in treating children with autism spectrum disorder. With the help of a knowledgeable professional, you can ensure that your child receives the benefits of physical therapy for children with ASD to help them reach their goals.

How Sensory Play Can Help Develop Language Skills

Conner.Duppenthaler@logicalposition.com (Conner Duppenthaler) — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 15:04:02 GMT

Sensory play helps kids develop the ability to connect language and sensory experiences. Through sensory play, children learn how to describe objects and their properties, allowing them to communicate more effectively with others.

Creative activities such as art projects can provide an opportunity for children to express themselves in new ways. By engaging in creative activities, children learn to use words in more subtle and meaningful ways. Here’s how sensory play can help develop language skills.

Examples of Sensory Play

Sensory play is an activity that encourages children to explore and interact with their environments to engage the senses. It is a great way for kids to learn how the world works. Through sensory play, children develop skills such as problem-solving, communication, and creativity.

Sensory activities can include exploring different textures, sounds, smells, and colors. Children can explore the textures of sand and water by mixing them together in a sensory bin. They can also experiment with sound and music by playing instruments or exploring different rhythms.

Kids can use their senses of smell by adding fragrances to play clay or exploring the smells of different flowers or spices. They can use their senses of sight by playing with colorful objects, exploring light and shadows, or observing bubble lamps that change color as bubbles rise within them.

Benefits of Sensory Play

There are many benefits to sensory play that can help children develop language skills. Through sensory play, children can:

Develop the ability to use words to describe objects and their properties.
Increase vocabulary skills through creative activities.
Develop problem-solving skills by exploring how different objects interact with each other.
Learn to communicate effectively with others through creative activities.
Improve their ability to focus and concentrate on a task for an extended time.

Ways Sensory Play Helps Kids With Autism

Sensory play is especially beneficial for kids with autism. Engaging in sensory activities can help children learn how to control their emotions and behavior. Sensory activities also provide opportunities to practice social skills. They build confidence in communication abilities, which in turn develops positive self-esteem.

Occupational therapists use indoor sensory playgrounds to give autistic children a variety of sensory experiences. These experiences can help them center themselves so they can learn communication skills that will reduce frustration and anxiety and help develop social skills.

Sensory play also benefits those who are learning a second language. Children can practice their foreign-language skills while engaging in a fun activity. This type of play can help build vocabulary by introducing new words and concepts within the context of the game.

Sensory play helps children develop language skills in many ways, from expressing themselves and communicating needs to social skills like reciprocity in conversation and using words relevant to shared activities. Through sensory play, children can increase their vocabulary skills, develop problem-solving skills, and learn to communicate effectively with others.

Why Sensory Play Is Beneficial to All Children

Amanda.Delatorre@logicalposition.com (Amanda Delatorre) — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 19:15:50 GMT

Sensory play is a great way for children to explore the world around them. It helps develop their cognitive skills, motor skills, balance, and coordination. It also helps them develop problem-solving skills as they exercise their creativity.

Through sensory play, children learn how to interact with others in a safe and secure environment, but that’s not all. Learn why sensory play is beneficial to all children.

What Is Sensory Play?

Sensory play encourages children to use the five senses—sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing—to become more aware of their environments. It helps to stimulate mental development by providing an opportunity for children to explore different textures, shapes, colors, and more. In addition, it can help boost their confidence as they practice new skills and learn to think in different ways.

What Are the Benefits of Sensory Play?

Sensory play helps children develop cognitively and physically. It can help improve motor skills, balance, and perception. Through sensory activities, children will develop problem-solving skills as they explore and experiment with different objects. In addition, sensory activities can help children practice skills such as creativity and coordination. As children become more comfortable in their environments, their self-confidence will also increase.

Another great benefit of sensory play is that it teaches children how to interact with others appropriately. Through conversations and social interactions, children learn how to share, take turns, and be patient.

Common Sensory Play Equipment

Common sensory play equipment includes sandbox materials, water tables, foam blocks, finger paints, plastic dishes, and spoons. With these materials, children can explore different textures and engage with their environments. It’s important to supervise children when they’re playing with different sensory materials. Make sure there are no small items that pose choking hazards.

Sensory play benefits children by encouraging them to explore the world around them and helping them develop their cognitive and physical skills. With the help of common sensory play equipment, like the kind found in autism sensory playgrounds and gyms, children can use their senses in new ways to learn new skills.

The History of Treatment for Children With ASD

Amanda.Delatorre@logicalposition.com (Amanda Delatorre) — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 14:45:46 GMT

The earliest known reference to autism was in the early 1900s when Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler first used the term “autism” to describe mental states of withdrawal and isolation.

In the early 20th century, treatments for autism were often harsh and inhumane. But things have come a long way since then—learn more about the history of treatment for children with ASD.

What Is ASD?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that affects communication, behavior, and social interaction. People with ASD have difficulty understanding and responding to the world around them. It’s estimated that 1 in 59 children is diagnosed with ASD in the United States.

ASD is a spectrum disorder, meaning that it affects people differently and has different levels of severity. As Dr. James Coplan explained back in 2014, levels of severity exist along a continuum, and symptoms may change over time. People with ASD can have mild to severe difficulties in social, communication, and behavior areas. As they age, their symptoms can look more like mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, or even schizophrenia. Dr. Coplan argues that trying to compartmentalize these conditions doesn’t make sense, as they are all linked through biology and genetics.

Clinicians and researchers disagree about the efficacy of lumping several distinct disorders onto a “spectrum.” While some argue that having one diagnosis simplifies the diagnostic process, others argue that it can lead to underdiagnosis and oversimplification of complex conditions. As Dr. Coplan has pointed out, the truth is that no bright line exists between autism and “normal.” Every person with ASD is unique, and the diagnosis should be tailored to each individual’s needs.

The History of Treatment for Children With ASD

Early 20th-century treatments for autism were often harsh and inhumane. Doctors frequently recommended institutionalization. They tried other often abusive and largely ineffective treatments in their quest to “cure” autism.

Early Interventions

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Early interventions for autism began in the 1920s with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). This treatment involved passing electrical currents through the brain and was used to treat a variety of mental illnesses. However, people later found that it had no benefit, and ECT has since been discontinued as a form of treatment.

Dietary Changes

Many parents of children with ASD may think that special diets for their children are a relatively new phenomenon. But changes in diet as a treatment for autism began as early as the 1920s. Some physicians advocated for a gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) diet to treat autism as early as the 1940s. This was because they noticed the absence of celiac disease in malnourished children who lacked wheat in their diet due to wartime shortages.

The gluten-free and casein-free diet is still a popular autism treatment today, but research on its effectiveness is inconclusive. Other people have proposed other dietary treatments, such as the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD), which eliminates starches and sugars from the diet to reduce inflammation in the gut. The effectiveness of these diets in reducing symptoms of autism and autistic behaviors is largely based on anecdotal reports.

Mid-Century Approaches

Behavioral Interventions

In the 1950s and 1960s, behaviorists began developing interventions focused on changing behaviors through reinforcement techniques such as token economies. Token economies involve providing rewards for some behaviors to encourage them while discouraging undesirable behaviors.

Psychological Approaches

Also in the 1950s and 1960s, Austrian psychiatrist Hans Asperger described a milder form of autism among children who had difficulty understanding social cues but were often highly intelligent. His work laid the foundation for the definition of Asperger’s syndrome.

During this time, many treatments were based on Bruno Bettelheim’s psychoanalytic theory that autism was caused by “refrigerator mothers.” Widely accepted at the time, the theory has since been thoroughly discredited.

Applied Behavior Analysis

In the 1970s and 1980s, behavioral approaches became more popular. Applied behavior analysis (ABA) uses positive reinforcement to shape and modify behavior. ABA may include functional communication training, social skills training, visual supports, self-monitoring, and data collection. Token economies provide rewards to encourage some behaviors and discourage others.

Auditory Integration Training

Auditory integration training (AIT) developed in the 1980s as a treatment for autism. It involves listening to specific sounds and tones to improve auditory processing skills. Although some research has suggested that AIT may be helpful, there is still no consensus on its efficacy.

More Recent Interventions

Many current treatments combine behavioral, educational, and medical approaches. Therapies such as speech therapy, occupational therapy, sensory integration therapy, and social skills training are widely used as part of comprehensive educational and treatment plans.

In addition to these treatments, some parents use dietary changes or nutritional supplements. Others turn to medication, which in some cases has been shown to improve concentration and attention.

Medication is not typically a standalone treatment for autism; however, it can help manage some of the related symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is important to work with a doctor to create an individualized plan that considers the person’s specific needs.

Current Approaches

Understanding Autism’s Genetic Roots

Today, researchers are looking to uncover the genetic roots of autism. With advances in technology and genetics, scientists have discovered dozens of genes associated with ASD. This has led to a greater understanding of how the disorder develops and improved treatment options for those affected by it.

Communication and Social Skills Training

Communication and social skills training helps children with ASD understand social cues and build relationships.

Therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) help individuals develop coping strategies to manage anxiety. It also teaches them how to regulate their emotions in stressful situations so they can behave in socially acceptable ways.

Sensory Skills Development and Play

Sensory rooms and playgrounds provide a safe, structured environment to help autistic children and adults regulate their emotions and behavior. These spaces often have soft surfaces, calming music, and various tactile materials to explore. Home sensory gyms and structured activities such as yoga or dance classes can help children learn how to better respond to their environments.

Neurodiversity and Autism Activism

Finally, there is a growing movement of autism activists who believe that autistic people should be accepted and embraced for their differences. These advocates promote the idea of neurodiversity, which recognizes that different forms of neurological wiring are a normal part of human variation and should not be seen as something to be “fixed” or “cured.”

The “Nothing About Us Without Us” movement is an important part of this advocacy as well. It seeks to give people with disabilities autonomy and control in decisions that affect their lives.

Autism is a complex disorder that affects individuals differently depending on their unique combination of strengths, weaknesses, and interests. The continuing evolution of the history of treatment for children with ASD recognizes the potential of every individual with autism, striving to create environments where each autistic person can thrive.

How Socialization Can Help Children With Autism

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 17:18:03 GMT

As much as they may not want to think about it, the ultimate job for parents is to enable their children to survive without them. That task can be particularly daunting for parents of autistic kids. Learn how socialization can help children with autism.

What Is Socialization?

In a nutshell, socialization is the process of learning how to behave within socially acceptable boundaries. It encompasses everything from table manners to lowering your voice in the library to waiting patiently for your turn at bat.

Socialization also encompasses the ability to make and maintain friendships, resolve conflict, make compromises, and share. All of these aspects of growing and learning can be challenges for autistic children.

Why Socialization Is Tough for Kids With Autism

Broadly speaking, learning social skills is a challenge for kids on the autism spectrum for two primary reasons: sensory overload or communication issues.

Autistic kids may find social situations involving several people overwhelming. They can react with extreme anxiety, tantrums, or total withdrawal. Many autistic kids don’t appear to be interested in social contact at all. It’s important to understand that such reactions are natural defenses to overwhelming inputs that are just too much to handle.

A child may be okay interacting with just one other person, but add several members of a boisterous family or classroom, and an autistic child may scream, cover their ears, bolt out of the room or house, or find a corner to sit in in order to cope.

When the problem isn’t social interest, but communication, autistic children can become frustrated and hurt. They want very badly to be part of the group but may not understand social norms like reciprocity in a conversation or the rules of a game. Their need for more time to process language and formulate phrases to communicate and participate may exceed their peers’ patience, causing them to be left out of social activities.

What Parents and Teachers Can Do

Facilitate! Set up support opportunities with just one peer at a time. Identify peers and classmates who are more understanding and display the patience and compassion required to interact with an autistic person. Then, set up play dates in low-key situations where there isn’t pressure to perform, as in a school spelling bee, or compete, as in a team sport.

Many communities have sensory playgrounds where children with differences feel more welcome, and neurotypical kids simply recognize as fun to visit. Schedule an unstructured play date at the playground and let the kids interact, or not, normally. After a while, you may see more reciprocity, more interactive play instead of “parallel play,” and greater tolerance for additional kids joining the fun.

Make sure that working on social skills is part of the autistic child’s individualized education program (IEP). Provide opportunities to practice social skills during the week, such as visits to the grocery store, your house of worship, or community events.

Above all, give it time. Parents can model socialization that can help children with autism by demonstrating the patience and understanding their child needs from others, just as their child learns socialization skills from their peers.

Reasons To Become a Physical Therapist for Kids With ASD

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 17:55:38 GMT

Physical therapists help people recover from injuries from sports or accidents and regain movement after suffering strokes. They also help people with disabilities get the maximum range of motion out of their bodies and learn how to improve balance and build strength.

Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty with balance and coordination. They also have overdeveloped sensory abilities and may overreact to mild stimuli. They run when they should walk, hug or shake hands too hard, or have trouble walking straight or maintaining equilibrium.

Reasons to become a physical therapist for kids with ASD include the gratification of making an observable difference in a child’s life. Physical therapists can help a child learn to walk and play without falling, use both sides of their bodies effectively to climb or dance, or give handshakes and close doors with a socially acceptable force.

For Kids: Gross Motor Skills

Physical therapists help kids develop gross motor skills, or the ability to use the large muscles of their bodies to walk, run, lift objects, or climb. As their pediatric clients develop strength, therapists also help ensure proper balance and spatial awareness. Developing these gross motor skills also helps children participate in play.

Autistic kids benefit from using sensory gym equipment designed to help them build body awareness and improve their vestibular senses (where our bodies are in relation to the ground) and proprioceptive systems (the sense that tells us where we are in relation to other objects and people).

Physical therapists can help kids learn how to “pump” to keep a swing going or even help them develop their balance to learn how to ride a bike.

For Kids: Fine Motor Skills

Many kids with ASD have trouble with fine motor skills, like using scissors, handwriting, and gripping utensils for eating. Physical therapists can devise exercises that help strengthen hands and fingers and give kids practice using tools and implements, such as forks, spoons, scissors, pens, and pencils, and performing tasks like tying their shoes and buttoning their clothing.

For Therapists: Flexibility, Pay, and Regular Hours

The increase in the diagnosis of autism in children has increased the demand for physical, speech, and occupational therapists. The professionals are well paid, with an average starting salary of over $85,000 per year, according to Indeed.com.

In addition to good pay, physical therapists enjoy regular work hours. Many medical professions require long, unpredictable hours, night shifts, or unscheduled overtime. Physical therapists, by contrast, tend to work regular business hours.

Finally, there are many types of positions available for physical therapists. These professionals can work in hospitals, private practices, schools, or professional sports organizations.

Reasons to become a physical therapist for children with ASD can be personal, financial, or simply because the career offers tremendous personal fulfillment.

10 Facts You Need To Know About Autism Spectrum Disorder

Amanda.Delatorre@logicalposition.com (Amanda Delatorre) — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 16:54:54 GMT

According to the US Centers for Disease Control, approximately 1 in 44 children in the United States have been identified as having an autism spectrum disorder. The prevalence of autism diagnoses has risen steadily since 2000, when the rate of autism was 1 in 150.

The reasons for the sharp increase are open to debate, but most researchers are landing on improved awareness and diagnosis, rather than an “epidemic” of unknown causes. As more children are identified earlier as being on the autism spectrum, schools are called upon to provide specifically tailored education services. In addition, first responders are receiving training in identifying persons with autism, and communities are learning to be more inclusive.

Nevertheless, myths and misconceptions about autism persist. Incorrect assumptions about autism can interfere with understanding the condition, as they are often spurred by stereotypical depictions in film or TV or caused by disinformation on social media. Learn these important facts you need to know about autism spectrum disorder.

If You’ve Met One Person With Autism, You’ve Met One Person With Autism

Every individual on the autism spectrum is unique, each having their own individual challenges and abilities. These differences must be met on their own terms. Any educational or therapeutic program for an autistic person must be created to address that person’s individual differences.

A common misconception is that all people with autism have some kind of “superpower,” either with music, math, memory, or visual art. While it’s true that many persons with autism have special abilities, it’s not true that all autistic people are “savants.”

Parents Don’t Cause Autism

From the 1940s to the 1970s, psychologists often blamed “refrigerator mothers” for autism; this misdiagnosis trend started with psychologist Leo Kanner and persisted through Bruno Bettelheim. They claimed that cold and unaffectionate parenting caused autism. This idea created decades of pain and misunderstanding for families with autistic kids.

However, the “blame the mother” idea may have begun decades earlier with Sigmund Freud. But the refrigerator mother idea was debunked in the 1970s, starting with Autism Research Institute founder Dr. Bernard Rimland. Himself an autism parent, Dr. Rimland devoted himself to improving the lives of families affected by autism. Researchers have since then proven that parental behavior does not cause autism, spurred by Dr. Rimland’s research.

Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism

Another enormously harmful myth started in 1998 with the publication of a paper by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, claiming that there was a link between vaccines and autism. The paper, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, was retracted when it was found to have no basis in proper research methods. There were also no control groups and no statistical support.

Nevertheless, the report caused an international sensation and engendered a persistent myth about vaccines and autism. Thousands of studies since the paper’s publication have shown that there is no connection between vaccination and autism.

Autism Is Permanent

There is no “cure” for autism. As persons on the autism spectrum become more vocal about their differences and the quality of their lives, they have taken the lead in encouraging a new way of looking at people with different kinds of brains. They coined the term “neurodiversity” to describe the abundance of variation along the spectrum of human intelligence and ways of perceiving the world.

Now, it’s common for persons on the spectrum to be described as “neurodiverse,” while people not diagnosed with ASD may be referred to as “neurotypical.” These terms recognize that much of what is considered “normal” comes from societal expectations, and the diversity of human brains and behavior is not carefully considered. Those whose behaviors defy “normal” expectations wish to be recognized as being fully integrated into the vast array of human possibilities.

While it’s a permanent condition, having autism doesn’t mean autistic people don’t grow and learn. Children on the autism spectrum can learn socially acceptable behavior, as well as develop skills from reading to math to cooking and doing laundry.

Autism Is Often Invisible

Some people are first diagnosed with autism as adults. They often feel a huge sense of relief after receiving a diagnosis that explains much of their experience of difference throughout their lives.

A person with autism could be someone who doesn’t make eye contact, who has “nervous tics” like humming to themselves, tapping their fingers, flapping their hands, or having a tendency to rock back and forth. Those people may experience the world differently and might use these behaviors as a crutch to provide themselves a break from the overwhelming sensory bombardment that occurs in our fast-paced modern world.

Persons on the spectrum have trouble decoding social norms and find it difficult to form friendships. They may be overly direct and lack tact without understanding why their bluntness is a problem. When the people they are trying to relate to don’t understand that autism could be an explanation, relationships could suffer.

Behavior Forms the Basis of an Autism Diagnosis

There is no blood test or scan that can form the basis of an autism diagnosis. Instead, autism is defined by behavior that includes difficulty with social and emotional “reciprocity,” understanding non-verbal communication, and developing and maintaining relationships. Additionally, there must be restricted or repetitive behaviors like a need for a rigid routine, repetitive motions or speech patterns, intense, focused interests, or strong reactions to sensory inputs from the environments the person encounters.

Early Diagnosis Improves Outcomes

Early intervention for children diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum can make a significant difference in outcomes in later life. These interventions must be customized to an individual child’s needs and may involve speech, occupational, and physical therapies, as well as therapies designed to help a child cope with overwhelming sensory inputs.

Therapists often use sensory integration therapy equipment such as roller slides, mini-trampolines, crash pads, dimmed lights and gentle music, swings, and a variety of objects with different textures. This type of therapy allows children to experience and begin to sort out different sensations; also, it allows them to get a better understanding of how to cope with environments that may overwhelm them with bright lights, loud noises, or large crowds.

Gender Differences May Skew Diagnosis

It’s often repeated that autism spectrum disorders affect boys four times more often than girls. But clinicians and researchers have begun to acknowledge that this idea may be self-perpetuating. In other words, psychologists and special educators look for symptoms in boys more often than they do girls and may therefore miss more subtle signals of difference that girls display. Medical and school personnel may write off symptoms in girls as simply characteristics of female behavior instead of indicators of autism.

Diagnostic criteria were developed primarily from observations of behavior in boys. Only recently have researchers, psychologists, and especially teachers been sensitized to look for different symptoms in girls. For example, girls tend to display fewer or less intense repetitive behaviors than boys. And while the developing brains of girls are more like the brains of typical boys, they also seem to have a greater ability to mask their symptoms and learn how to “blend in.”

Persons on the Autism Spectrum Feel Empathy and Want To Make Friends

While people who live on the autism spectrum may have difficulty expressing their desire for friendship and social contact, it doesn’t mean they don’t have it. People on the spectrum may need extra help understanding social norms that seem irrational or inefficient to them. But persons with ASD can learn how to make friends, as well as how to appropriately express empathy for them. In fact, once past the communication barriers, autistic people can be very empathetic and caring friends.

There are many more than just these facts you need to know about autism spectrum disorder. We encourage you to continue to explore information about autism and the autism spectrum. If you have a child or other family member on the spectrum, you can attest that getting to know persons on the spectrum enriches your life in many surprising and delightful ways.

3 Reasons Why Your Library Needs a Sensory Room

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 18:36:50 GMT

Libraries are now bright spaces offering a larger variety of materials and media than ever before. Learn three reasons why your library needs a sensory room.

Benefits of Adding a Sensory Space To Your Classroom

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 20:31:09 GMT

Sensory spaces offer a variety of sensory experiences that can help anxious children relax, rambunctious kids blow off steam, and all kids develop motor and perceptual skills. The benefits of adding a sensory space to your classroom include helping kids of all abilities attain a receptive state of mind that helps them learn and retain information.

What’s a Sensory Space?

Sensory rooms are specially designed spaces that offer several types of sensory stimulation that can help an anxious or overwhelmed person decompress or find distractions that provide something to focus on to collect their scattered thinking and engage their concentration.

Still, others need the stimulation of movement they find in slides, climbing walls, crash pads, or video dance games. Sensory rooms offer enough variety to meet the needs of those who need an escape from bright lights and noise and those who want to jump and play.

Benefits of Sensory Spaces in Schools

Many informed communities have installed public autism sensory playgrounds serving kids with differences and their neurotypical friends. Schools can follow that example by installing sensory spaces in school buildings.

Schools with sensory rooms observe that students benefit from having a place to retreat from the pressure of performance anxiety in a classroom. Kids with learning differences or who simply need more time to process information find relief in a sensory space where they can wind down in a quiet environment with dim lighting and think.

Sensory spaces also offer a safe and relaxing space to develop social skills, away from the chaos of the playground. Many kids with differences prefer interacting with one person or peer at a time, and sensory rooms promote cooperative play in small groups, including those of just two.

Students who use sensory rooms discover ways to self-regulate. When allowed to explore the room and select their own activities freely, they find what works for them to prepare them to re-enter the larger school environment and cope with the noise, lights, and demands of the school day. These skills are transferable to other areas of their lives at home and recreational activities, enabling kids to cope with disappointment or frustration. Knowing how to calm yourself can help kids find positive solutions to many everyday problems, including disputes with other kids.

Sensory Rooms as Multi-Purpose Spaces

One of the benefits of sensory rooms in schools is that they provide an alternative and calming space for school-provided speech and occupational therapy, one-to-one tutoring, and family meetings where the discussion focuses on an individual student’s needs.

The benefits of adding a sensory space to your classroom also transfer to teachers. Calmer kids are better at learning, disruptive kids have a place to blow off steam without disturbing the rest of the class, and kids with different ways of processing information can do so at their own pace, improving results for everyone.The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.

Why Your Children’s Hospital Needs a Sensory Room

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 20:14:45 GMT

When a child gets injured or is seriously ill, a trip to the hospital is inevitable. Most kids aren’t crazy about regular doctor appointments, much less hospital visits. While some kids get fascinated by what doctors do and may enjoy using a toy medical kit to give their stuffed animals a checkup, a trip to the hospital can send any child over the edge.

Why Patients Need Sensory Rooms

Imagine a child for whom bright lights, buzzers and bells, and unfamiliar people are excruciating, or a child that needs the comfort of jumping or rocking getting asked to hold still. This is the reality for many kids on the autism spectrum and those with sensory processing disorders.

Already filled with anxiety due to pain or illness, traditional hospital environments can trigger an extreme reaction in a child on the autism spectrum—screaming, hitting, self-harm, biting, or other forms of lashing out could happen, and healthcare professionals may feel compelled to react by administering drugs.

Their experience of the normal world is fraught with the stress of overstimulation or sensory confusion that can only get soothed by a retreat to a quiet place or specific sensory experiences like a gentle squeeze from a peapod chair or a chance to bounce or climb. With one of every 44 children now diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, it’s easy to see why your children’s hospital needs a sensory room.

What Is a Sensory Room

A sensory room is where patients who feel anxious or overwhelmed can find a calming retreat. Typical features include dimmed lighting, gentle music, and “bubble walls” or towers that allow kids to relax and watch gently lit bubbles rise. There may be projections of changing colors, twinkling star lights on the ceiling, or chairs and toys that vibrate, offering a range of sensory experiences.

There may be beanbag chairs, rockers, cubbyholes, or mini-tents where a child can find some time alone. Fidget toys and swings can also soothe nervous kids, and “crash pads” or padded walls protect kids prone to “sensory seeking” behavior like throwing themselves against a wall or jumping off furniture.

Sensory rooms can also include adaptive technology that helps children communicate, like iPads loaded with picture exchange communication system (PECS) apps that help non-verbal autistic kids indicate their needs.

How a Sensory Room Helps Children in Hospital Environments

Often spurred by the efforts of staff who have kids with autism, healthcare organizations have begun to recognize why their children’s hospital needs a sensory room. The Dayton Children’s Hospital has introduced individualized sensory rooms for pre-operative calming for kids facing surgical procedures. These rooms have helped reduce pre-anesthesia medications' use to relax children before surgical anesthesia.

Similarly, the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey has installed a sensory room for its emergency department . The room includes “emoji” pillows so kids with communication challenges can indicate their feelings.

Similar adaptations are present in Memphis, San Francisco, and Syracuse hospitals, among others. Beyond pediatric services, evidence shows that sensory rooms help patients with dementia. If you’re a parent of a child with autism or sensory issues, talk to your pediatrician about the availability of sensory rooms in your local children’s hospital, and suggest installing sensory integration therapy equipment in their medical office waiting room.

How To Help Your Child With ASD Make Friends

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:58:53 GMT

Neurotypical people often mistake an autistic person’s avoidance of eye contact or tendency to physically distance themselves from others as deliberate aloofness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have strong social interests but difficulty expressing them in socially acceptable ways.

An autistic child may find social situations overwhelming due to sensory overload (too much noise, feeling too crowded, anxiety about not knowing what to do) and the inability to understand social cues, facial expressions, and tones of voice. Changes in schedules or routines, or simply new people in their environment, can make autistic people very anxious.

These changes present new challenges, and kids with ASD are aware of heightened expectations that they may be unable to meet in these situations. Autistic kids may feel they have no option but to retreat, find a quieter place, and have more space to calm themselves.

Other autistic kids may begin to display socially inappropriate “stimming” behavior like hand flapping, rocking bath and forth, jumping up and down, running away, or defensive behaviors like covering their ears. These behaviors may be soothing to an autistic child, but they are off-putting to neurotypical kids and can interfere with forming friendships.

Parents of autistic children understand how desperately their children want to make friends and may feel anguish and dismay when they don’t know what to do to teach their children how to cope with and thrive in social situations. But it is possible to learn how to help your child with ASD make friends.

What’s a Friend?

Autistic kids are vulnerable to bullying. Often, they don’t understand when other kids are making fun of them or luring them into dangerous or demeaning activities. An autistic child may think that any attention from peers is good.

This is why talking to your child about what a friend is and how a good friend behaves is essential. Keep your communication simple and concrete: “friends help you” and “friends like to do the things you like to do.” Explain that “people who hurt you are not friends.” Give examples of good friend behavior, like taking turns and sharing. Contrast these with unfriendly behavior, like stealing, saying mean things, or mocking by imitating behavior.

Start With Family and the Special Needs Community

You’ve likely met other special needs families in your community through activities designed for children with differences. Find a receptive parent and suggest a play date. Children with all types of differences crave friendship, and friends can come in all flavors.

Arrange to meet up on neutral ground. Autistic kids can be protective of their home environment, and having a friend over at their house may feel too invasive.

Parents of kids who use wheelchairs may be wary of a new environment and whether it can accommodate them. Instead of meeting at your home, see if you can meet up at an inclusive, indoor or outdoor sensory playground where the kids can feel comfortable and the parents are confident they are safe.

Follow Your Child’s Lead

Autistic children often have an intense interest in specific things. They may develop an encyclopedic knowledge of the history and superpowers of comic book or film characters. They may enjoy drawing or coloring for hours on end. Or they may love music.

Whatever your child’s into, other kids in the community will be into the same things. Find local groups, classes, or activities centered around your child’s interests. Attend with them to assess their comfort level and speak with the group’s facilitator about your child’s sensitivities and your hopes for the activity—that your child will have the opportunity to socialize and make a friend or two.

Many municipal parks and recreation departments have agreements with special needs recreation associations to facilitate activities for participants with special needs. Be assertive in obtaining help or accommodation for your child to foster their success in activities that help them pursue their interests.

Enlist Parents of Neurotypical Children

While some parents of neurotypical kids are, sadly, unwelcoming and even cold about allowing their children to associate with kids who have differences, others are compassionate and open to the idea. You may find such families among your faith community or friends and family.

If your child attends public school, insist that they are in the “least restrictive environment.” This means they may attend classes with neurotypical students, with or without an aide. It’s possible to help your child with ASD make friends among their classmates.

Ask your child if there’s anyone at school they’d like to have as a friend. Consult with the teacher of the class the kids share—does the teacher think the other child would be responsive? Then contact the child’s parent and see if you can arrange a playdate.

Don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t work out. Just keep trying, and at some point, you’ll find a compatible child who genuinely likes your child and is happy to spend time with them.

Use Social Stories and Practice

It can be challenging for autistic people to understand social rules and norms. The give and take of conversation, understanding what topics are OK to talk about and which are not, and reading subtle cues of facial expressions and body language do not come naturally to autistic people. It takes a lot of practice for an autistic person to understand what’s happening in a social situation.

Social stories are brief vignettes, told in text, pictures, or both, to show an autistic child a social situation and what to do and not do when they find themselves in such a situation. Your child’s special education teacher or therapist can help you find sources for social stories and select some that may help your child understand how to play and talk with a friend.

Don’t Push and Don’t Compare

Your child will make it abundantly clear when something pushes them beyond their tolerance. It’s critically important for parents of kids with ASD to abandon unrealistic expectations and to avoid comparing their child’s social life to that of their peers or themselves when they were kids.

One or two good friends may be enough for a child with ASD. In the long run, helping your child make a few close, understanding, and genuine friends who are likely to stick with them through adolescence and beyond will be more valuable than having a pack of superficial friends who come and go.

Helping a child with ASD make friends takes patience, endurance, and persistence. Don’t give up just because other parents seem unresponsive. By following your child’s interests and understanding that they may be happier with one good friend than with a group of acquaintances, you both will feel more successful and less anxious about social development.

Daily Coping Tips for Children With Autism

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 15:30:41 GMT

Parents use strategies to help autistic kids find comfort in our noisy, bright world. Here are some daily coping tips for children with autism.

5 Reasons Why Your Daycare Needs a Sensory Room

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 20:44:45 GMT

The diversity of children a daycare center may serve demands preparation for different temperaments and for emerging developmental differences. Here are five reasons why your daycare needs a sensory room.

Stimulation and Sensory Skills

Your daycare needs a sensory room to help children who feel overwhelmed. Daycare centers present a barrage of new sensory information, and a sensory room gives children a chance to choose a limited type of sensory stimulation that makes them feel more in control.

When a child chooses their preferred type of sensory stimulation, whether it is a bubble tower, a crash pad, a swing, or a dimly lit corner marked off with curtains or a tent, their brains can work on processing sensory input more effectively.

Calming Effects and Self-regulation

Sensory rooms can provide a calming effect for a distraught child. Putting items such as weighted blankets, mini trampolines, and crash pads in the room provides the sensory input a child needs to calm down and regulate their emotions.

Once kids feel calmer, they can prepare to return to the main learning environment. They can even begin to learn self-advocacy by requesting time in the sensory room to self-regulate before attending whatever activity is expected of them.

Motor Skills

Many kids with developmental differences, such as autism, struggle with motor skills. They may have difficulty processing sensory input from different parts of their bodies, which can make skipping, jumping, or climbing a challenge.

Sensory gym equipment typically includes things like low balance beams, mini climbing walls, monkey bars, and slides with ladders. These help children develop the motor skills to coordinate both sides of their bodies.

Cognitive Development

The physical challenges available in a sensory room help with cognitive development, too. In a sensory room, a child may experience thoughts such as, “If I push this button, something pops up!” or, “To get to the slide, I need to walk across this bridge.” These are forms of problem-solving that help children develop an understanding of cause and effect and how to respond to new situations and environments.

Socialization

Sensory rooms aren’t just for use as a retreat or a place for a child to isolate themselves from what they perceive as a chaotic environment. They are happy play places for kids of all abilities. Figuring out who gets to play with a toy, sit next to the bubble tower, or use the slide next are social skills that will benefit all kids.

Providing a sensory room for your daycare will reassure parents that you are attentive to their child’s differences and needs. Most importantly, your sensory room must be supervised at all times. And before you install a sensory room, staff must be trained, preferably by a licensed therapist, about why children need sensory equipment, how they might use it, and what to do if a child seems confused or upset.

Top Home Safety Tips for Parents of Autistic Children

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 18:24:56 GMT

Children with autism may be prone to wandering off or react unpredictably to distressing sensory stimuli. If they’re afraid of sirens or dogs, they might take off running right into moving traffic.

Other sensory differences create dangers as well. Kids with autism may be less sensitive to heat or cold and inadvertently burn themselves or go outside inadequately dressed for the weather. They may become fascinated with what happens when you heat metal in a microwave (making fire safety training that much more urgent) or with flushing objects down the toilet.

Each child with autism is unique, and our top home safety tips for parents of autistic children can help reduce danger in and around the home, whatever your child’s particular fixations or fears may be.

Practice Redundancy

Every pilot understands the concept of redundancy: if one system fails, another should be there to back it up. Parents are the pilot of their homes.

Meaning that in addition to having security gates at the head of staircases and fences around the yard, your home should have an alarm system that can alert you when your child goes beyond the boundaries of the yard or leaves their room.

An autism safety bracelet lists your contact information and your child’s name, so authorities know who to call if they find your child wandering. If your child can’t tolerate a bracelet or tags sewn into their clothing, use a non-toxic permanent marker to write your emergency contact information on their shirts and jackets.

Keep the Outlets Covered and Cabinets Locked

Parents of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis may feel comfortable removing “childproofing” as the child grows. But kids with autism may never learn or simply may be unable to process common household dangers. Keep outlets covered, cabinets secured, and toilets locked for as long as necessary to protect your child from electrocution, poisoning, and drowning.

Be Cautious About Furniture Placement

Children with autism and who need extra sensory stimulation may climb and jump on and off furniture. Place furniture in such a way that a climbing child can’t reach lighting or shelves or accidentally flip the furniture over. Secure bookcases and TV stands to walls or floors to avoid potentially deadly tip-overs.

For children who love to climb or who need the soothing stimulation of swinging or bouncing, provide safe alternatives with indoor sensory play equipment . This equipment could include mini-climbing walls, crash pads, swings or slides, and monkey bars with ladders.

Use Visual Cues

Laminated “STOP” signs and “yukky” face stickers can alert children with autism to danger. Mark dangerous areas as off-limits with visual cues such as these to help them understand.

Inform First Responders

Make sure your local police or sheriff’s department and firefighters know there is a child or children with autism in the home. The Autism Society and other advocacy groups offer stickers, and business cards that explain a child with autism may not respond to commands. These alerts and reminders are critical to your child’s safety in an emergency.

Taking extra steps to ensure home safety for children with autism is second nature to parents who have been providing for the needs of their children with autism since toddlerhood. Parents of children with a more recent diagnosis may need to reassess their home environment to address their children’s needs.

8 Tips for Improving the Quality of Life for Kids With ASD

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 20:21:02 GMT

A diagnosis of autism (or, more accurately, a diagnosis that places a child on the autism spectrum) is a jolt to parents who had imagined a very different kind of family experience. Between therapy, advocacy, diet, and for some families, medication, efforts to help an autistic child can be exhausting.

Below we’ve listed eight tips for improving the quality of life for kids with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that can make life better, and maybe even a little more manageable, in the face of the special needs of a child with autism.

Learn To Communicate

Whether your child uses spoken words, gestures, or doesn’t seem to communicate at all, the inability to express their own needs can be enormously frustrating for autistic kids. Parents are best attuned to learning what their child is trying to say.

Every parent learns to diagnose an infant’s needs, even to the point of recognizing different types of cries that signify “I’m hungry,” “I need to be cuddled,” or “I’m wet.” They can do the same with autistic kids. It just takes repetition and sensitivity to the child’s needs. Learn your child’s verbal or non-verbal cues to help you respond to their needs.

Professionals can offer communication systems for non-verbal kids, from picture exchange communication systems (PECS) to “talkers” (devices that speak sentences for the child) to iPads that use specially designed apps to facilitate communication.

With time, your child may speak and eventually learn to communicate effectively with words or by using pictures, gestures, or electronic devices. Some kids who never learn to talk still learn how to write or type to communicate.

Practice Positive Reinforcement

Punishing a person for having a disability is cruel and pointless. Instead, practice positive reinforcement. When your child makes a developmental leap (ties their shoes for the first time, uses a fork instead of their fingers, or makes eye contact when they respond to a question), provide a small reward. It could be a sticker, a small stuffed animal, or a new dry-erase marker for their whiteboard.

Advocate and Accommodate

Although more people are becoming familiar with autism, parents and children still face misunderstanding in new settings. From restaurants to playgrounds to schools, parents must act as advocates for their children.

When going out with your child, call ahead and explain that you’re bringing an autistic child, and briefly describe their sensitivities. Ask for a corner table by a window or an aisle seat. You’ll be surprised at how responsive most restaurants, theaters, museums, and sporting venues can be.

Meet with your child’s educational team more often than just during Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings, and be prepared to offer suggestions about how best to reach your child. Your child may need a separate space to take a break, a screen they can sit behind to mask the often chaotic classroom décor, or noise-canceling headphones to use during work periods.

As you advocate for your child, make sure you address the following:

Visual supports - If your child responds better to visual cues, say so. Ask for visual checklists, schedules, and menus.
Routine - Predictability is comforting to a person with autism. Do your best to maintain routines and to prepare your child in advance if there will be a disruption on a given day.
Sensitivities - Get help with things like volume, bright light, the need for a quiet break space, or fidget toys.
Self-advocacy - All parents make the mistake of doing things for their kids that their kids could just as easily do for themselves. For kids with special needs, this can be especially problematic. Kids with special needs must self-advocate, such as asking for breaks when needed, avoiding foods that will cause an allergic reaction, and asking for help if they get lost or feel threatened by a stranger.

Exercise

Persons with disabilities are at greater risk of obesity. Whether this is because participating in sports or exercise is more difficult due to physical or intellectual and social issues (difficulty understanding rules, discomfort with large and noisy teams), it makes finding ways for your child to get exercise even more important.

Talking walks with your child or visiting playgrounds where they can observe other kids and play alongside them will help your child incorporate some movement into their day. If your community hasn’t upgraded its public playgrounds in years, lead an effort to renew and redesign them into sensory playgrounds welcoming to kids of all abilities.

Diet

Many autistic kids have sensory issues that cause them to be extremely picky eaters. Sometimes foods they love aren’t very nutritious. It takes time, but gently introduce healthful foods until your child becomes more willing to expand the range of foods they’ll agree to consume. It’s essential to involve your pediatrician and possibly a qualified therapist in monitoring and gently adapting your child’s eating habits to ensure they get the nutrients they need.

Patience, Persistence, Preparation

Raising an autistic child takes enormous patience and a strong dose of faith in the future. It may take years to teach your child to be safe in a parking lot or how to button their shirt, but don’t give up.

Preparation is also critical. When you know you’ll be going into an environment that triggers a strong reaction in your child, be ready with the noise-canceling headphones, the weighted hat or blanket, the fidget toys, or the crunchy snacks that help address sensory needs so your child can remain calm.

Embrace Community

Many states have adopted a one-size-fits-all approach to special education. If your child attends public school, they may end up in a special education classroom with children who have many different types of disabilities. This stretches teachers, teacher’s aides, and resources to the breaking point.

Get to know the parents of all the kids in your child’s class, and embrace the ready-made community of parents and families the situation presents to you. Although the educational benefits of special education classrooms trying to serve diverse needs may be limited, the opportunity to form a supportive special needs community is not. This is true for both you and your child. Life is better with friends, and diverse classrooms offer opportunities to build lifelong friend relationships.

Trust Your Instincts and Choose Professionals Wisely

Sadly, schools alone won’t be able to provide all the help your child may need. When choosing doctors and therapists for your child, solicit recommendations from parents whose children seem to be succeeding in school and social situations. Look into professional and educational backgrounds, board certifications, years of experience, and treatment philosophies.

Don’t expect immediate results, but If you get started with a professional and your child becomes more defiant or withdrawn, or the professional’s advice seems out of sync with your child’s needs, look elsewhere.

Decisions about what is best for a child belong to their parents. When the child can express their hopes, goals, and needs, these should then take precedence.

Taking steps now to improve the quality of life for a child with ASD will pay off in the future as your child learns to self-advocate, keep themselves safe, participate in activities that make them happy, and build a more independent life.

The Best Ways To Engage Autistic Children in Play Activities

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 19:43:33 GMT

Kids learn social skills such as sharing and taking turns by playing with other kids. They also develop imagination and creativity, fine and gross motor skills, and problem solving abilities.

Autistic kids can struggle with social interaction. It’s difficult for them to learn the rules of a game, or cope with the noise and proximity of other kids. Since play is an important learning experience, parents of kids with autism spectrum disorders learn the best ways to engage autistic children in play activities. Read on for a few activities you can use to engage your child.

Follow Their Lead

Many autistic kids have unusual interests. Whatever your child’s special interest, try to follow their lead. If they like to sit and watch a fan, sit down next to them with your own fan (not too close, if your child has strong tactile defensiveness or needs a lot of personal space).

After several minutes, you could introduce a playful element, such as showing how the fan can make your voice sound funny. If your kid likes to organize or sort things, provide plastic bins filled with mixed up blocks or balls, and as many empty bins as there are colors or shapes in the mixed box. Then sit back and watch what happens.

Mirror Your Child

The fan strategy above is a form of “parallel play,” where kids play alongside, but not with, other kids. As with watching the fan, try doing this with other types of play.

It’s OK if the entire session happens in silence. Eventually, your child may speak to their toy or to you, and you’ll have a chance to respond. This can lead to more natural playtime interaction and even sharing toys or making stories together.

Participate, But Don’t Direct

Layering verbal instructions on top of play activities requires your child to alter their focus. The interruption is a transition from one activity to another, and transitions are tough for autistic kids. They can trigger an anxious reaction or even a meltdown.

Resist the temptation to guide or direct your child’s play. Instead, simply observe and follow. Gently introduce minor changes, such as a new doll or action figure that fits with those your child already has. If your child repeats the same conversation with a doll over and over, or pushes a toy car in just one direction, you can use your own toy to demonstrate other topics to talk about or that the car will go backwards, too.

Maintain a Calm, Uncluttered Environment

Parents know their autistic child’s sensitivities best. Make sure the play environment respects those sensitivities. Keep the play area organized. Keep the lights gentle, and the sounds low. Avoid toys that play loud noises without warning, flash blinking lights, or that feel slimy or scratchy.

If you have a spare room you can designate as a play space, consider adding indoor sensory play equipment to give your child options to choose from based on the activities they enjoy. Swings, slides, crash pads, and a quiet cubbyhole for break time, can help your child learn self-regulation and develop fine and gross motor skills.

Engaging an autistic child in play activities may require you to redefine play and recognize that whatever your child is doing at the moment constitutes play in their world. Try entering and engaging with their world before you ask them to enter yours.

5 Important Exercises for Children With Autism

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 19:59:22 GMT

In addition to cognitive and sensory challenges, autistic kids often have difficulty with motor skills, balance, and body awareness. Working with a qualified therapist, parents can learn 5 important exercises for children with autism that will reinforce what a child is learning through formal therapy sessions.

Start slowly, and choose your time wisely. Create a calm but fun environment where your child feels comfortable. If you have the space, devote a room in your home to exercise, disguised as play, by building a home sensory gym. Use basic equipment such as mats, crash pads, and balance beams, or you can have professionals install equipment for you.

Medicine Ball Slam

Raising a heavy medicine ball overhead and then slamming it down on the floor, repeatedly, builds core, arm, and leg strength. The activity has also been shown to improve short-term memory skills. Medicine ball slams can give sensory seeking kids that strong physical sensation they need to feel more comfortable in their own bodies. Sensory avoidant kids may enjoy the sense of control they have: the ball only makes noise when they slam it down.

Mirror Exercises

Mirror exercises help autistic kids build social skills through awareness of their environment and other people. It’s also a common exercise in acting classes to improve an actor’s attentiveness to other actors. Sit across from your child and ask them to do exactly what you do: when you raise your right hand, they should raise their left.

If your child doesn’t quite understand, do this in front of a full length mirror. Then, you can try it without the mirror and ask your child to be your mirror, doing what you do just as it would look in the mirror.

Bear Crawls

Most kids love imitating animals. Bear crawls require kids to coordinate both sides of their bodies (bilateral movement). Thus, exercise builds strength and motor planning skills.

Start on all fours, with hands under the shoulders and knees under the hips. Then lift off the mat a bit, supporting weight on the hands and the balls of the feet, and “walk” forward like a big bear! The tricky part is to reverse, and “walk” backwards. You can add a few growls to make it more fun, and you can go slowly, like a bear looking for berries to eat, or fast, like a bear running toward a river to catch a fish!

Jumping Jacks (Star Jumps)

Jumping jacks (also called star jumps) build cardiovascular fitness as well as leg and arm strength. They also require bi-lateral coordination, moving both sides of the body at the same time.

Yoga

Many yoga poses are named after animals, and that can grab a child’s interest. The focus on breathing along with movement can calm an anxious or overstimulated child. The slow pace encourages kids to tune in to their bodies and their environment, while a yoga mat marks out personal space and helps a child understand appropriate social distance.

Ask your child’s therapist for more suggestions on how to build your own home sensory gym and exercises for children with autism that can help your child improve their motor skills, build strength, relieve anxiety, improve balance, and better understand where their body is in space and how the parts of their body work together to create movement.

Sensory Integration Therapy and Autism: What To Know

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 15:37:56 GMT

Some autistic people’s extreme reactions to light, sound, textures, foods, and smells may have to do with a kind of “sensory overload” in their brains, which are proven to have far more neural connections than neurotypical brains.

Some autistic people need more, not less, sensory stimulation to understand their environment and where their bodies are in space relative to objects. They may also need help understanding how the parts of their bodies relate to each other. Many autistic people have difficulty with both fine and gross motor skills.

Sensory integration disorders, also known as sensory processing disorders, describe a set of issues people may face when their brains interpret sensory input. When an autistic brain constantly fires off messages, trying to make sense of one discrete type of input becomes very difficult. It can be exhausting and tremendously frustrating.

Sensory Integration Therapy

Sensory therapy offers sensory experiences in a controlled environment. The theory behind states exposure can train a brain to be less anxious about input and to have a more socially acceptable response. The therapy may include exposure to lights, sounds, smells, and textures.

In addition to the five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, and sound), we also have a vestibular system that regulates balance. The proprioceptive sense informs us where our bodies are relative to objects, and where our body parts are relative to each other. Sensory integration involves all these sensory systems.

What Kind of Therapist Uses Sensory Integration Therapy?

Occupational therapists usually provide sensory integration therapy. Often presented as a form of play, the therapy uses sensory gym equipment to provide opportunities for children with sensory integration problems to encounter and process sensory information.

Along with lights, sounds, and textures, sensory gyms may include swings, crash pads, roller slides, balance beams, monkey bars, and mini climbing walls. They help kids process sensory input from their environments, and their own bodies.

Therapists may also use techniques like gently brushing the skin on the arms, a kind of exposure therapy that is thought to lessen a child’s sensitivities to textures. Professionals may also use weighted vests or blankets to help a child understand body awareness.

Not for Everyone

Sensory integration and autism haven’t been scientifically proven to be compatible. Most reports of results are anecdotal. While many kids respond well to this therapy, others find it increases their discomfort. For these kids, accommodations like noise-canceling headphones or alterations in the environment (dimmed lights, gentle music, or the availability of “squeeze” chairs or rockers) can help calm an overstimulated child.

If you think your child should try sensory integration therapy, get recommendations from other parents in your local autism community, and talk to several therapists about your child’s specific sensitivities.

How To Throw A Great Autism-Friendly Birthday Party

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 22:47:58 GMT

Birthday parties are too often more important to parents marking milestones than they are to the child they’re celebrating. Birthday parties are a social ritual that parents manage, either because their child received an invitation to one or because parents have planned a party for their own child. Additionally, parents must help their children through the pain of being excluded from other children’s birthday celebrations on occasion.

All these scenarios are supercharged with stress for parents of autistic children. Parents of neurotypical children also face the challenge of including their children’s autistic classmates. And it is likely that there will be autistic classmates, as according to the CDC , 1 in 44 children in the US is on the autism spectrum.

Considering the range of disabilities and functional needs likely represented in your child’s peer group, it’s worth hosting an autism-friendly party that’s inclusive of all kids. Parents of children with differences are the best advisors on how to throw a great autism-friendly birthday party that will successfully include their kids.

Because you are likely already familiar with the parents of other disabled kids who you invited to attend the party, talk to those parents well in advance! Take the opportunity to learn about their child’s specific sensitivities and needs so that you can plan a party with as few triggers as possible for all the kids attending.

Address Social Issues Early

Kids at school will inevitably talk about the parties they plan to attend or what they did at a birthday party over the weekend. If your child wasn’t invited, you might not find out about it until they get home, irritated and distraught.

When kids reach birthday party age, it seems like someone is having a celebration every other week. Get in front of the issue by talking to your child about how families simply can’t accommodate everyone or how some kids prefer a smaller party.

For autistic kids, a dozen loud kids running around could cause a meltdown. Work with your child to plan your guest list carefully, and invite only those friends that you know demonstrate kindness and respect each other’s differences.

For neurotypical children’s parties, please don’t trim the guest list simply by excluding all the kids with differences. Make an honest assessment of the accommodations you’re able to provide, and invite the kids your child regards as friends. This choice may mean refraining from inviting some children just because you know their parents or because they are the most “popular” kids at school.

Look Critically Around Your Home

Is your home wheelchair accessible and safe for blind or deaf kids? Are you aware that some physical games can be unsafe for someone with Down syndrome? Some people with Down syndrome have a condition called atlantoaxial instability (AAI), which means that the joint between the upper spine and the skull is “loose.” This makes some kinds of sports or activities dangerous, especially for kids. If a child with Down syndrome will attend, talk to their parents first to make sure you understand any physical limitations or symptoms you need to be aware of.

Food Issues

In addition to asking about food allergies on the invitation, poll parents of all the kids who might attend to learn about food sensitivities or difficulties with eating. Some kids with physical disabilities may only be able to safely take liquids, while others are at risk of aspirating their food unless they have knowledgeable assistance. Some parents may be hesitant to allow their child to attend the party unless a caregiver comes with them. Reassure parents that parents, aides, or caregivers are welcome.

Pizza, cake, and ice cream are not necessarily required, especially if kids who can’t tolerate them are attending. If you plan to serve something a guest can’t have, ask their parents what a satisfying substitute would be. Remember to provide it in an unobtrusive way so that the child doesn’t feel singled out.

Goody Bags

Think about whether you’ll hand out goody bags, and if so, what you’ll put in them. Food sensitivities may extend to sugary candies, artificial colors, or mini foods that present choking hazards for some disabled kids. Small noisemakers could also trigger autistic kids.

It’s also crucial to consider how the party guests might react to certain characters or themes. Some kids are so obsessed with—or afraid of—particular children’s television or film characters that they’ll react unpredictably to seeing them at the party. Try to keep goody bags neutral and identical while keeping tastes, textures, and choking hazards in mind.

Sensory Retreat

A great autism-friendly birthday party will offer a quiet place for autistic kids to retreat to if they feel overwhelmed. It can be as simple as a toy tent or a guest room with softer lighting, gentle music, and a weighted blanket. It’s important to give children permission to step away as needed, even if they’re the one the party is for. Large events can become overwhelming for anyone, and time in a neutral, cozy space can ease anxiety or overstimulation.

Venues

Your community may have invested in an autism sensory playground that is welcoming to kids with autism. Such playgrounds will have fences or barriers to keep kids from wandering and equipment that is soothing to autistic kids, such as swings, jumping pads, monkey bars, and roller slides. Spaces such as playhouses, pretend caves, or cubbyholes can also allow kids to take a break.

Indoor party rental spaces may also offer swings, crash pads, and autism-friendly obstacle courses for kids to play on safely. Commercial party spaces must be ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant. This requirement means the space will have wide doorways and ramps for wheelchair users, accessible bathroom stalls, and signage in braille.

With these tips in mind, you can host a fantastic autism-friendly birthday party that celebrates an autistic child’s interests while avoiding triggers for other kids who will attend. Remember to coordinate with other parents to discover more about your child’s friends and what you can do to throw the best party possible.

Effective Ways To Help Kids With ASD Develop Hand Skills

tony.mers@logicalposition.com (Tony Mers) — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 14:42:07 GMT

Although every child with autism experiences the world in their own way, many kids on the autism spectrum struggle with hand skills. Fastening buttons, tying shoes, using scissors, and writing can create anxiety and frustration for children with autism. Here are some effective ways to help kids with ASD develop hand skills.

Address the Environment

Children on the autism spectrum may display a number of sensitivities that interfere with their ability to work on fine motor skills. Noise, bright lights, crowded spaces, and unfamiliar textures can cause sensory overload that may overwhelm children.

Consider offering kids with autism a private space and options to sit more comfortably or even work while lying on their stomachs. They may feel better working with their legs covered by a weighted blanket. Be attentive to light and sound; noise-canceling headphones can help soothe a child with autism.

Provide sensory soothers like a sand or water table, stress balls, and fidget toys for the child to use when they feel stressed and want to take a break.

Build the Proprioceptive Sensory System

It may seem counterintuitive but building gross motor skills in the form of climbing, skipping, and jumping can boost body awareness in a way that helps fine motor skills. Sensory integration therapy equipment often includes mini climbing walls and trampolines, crash pads, and rope ladders to help kids build strength and body awareness.

These activities require motor planning, bilateral, and hand strength for gripping ropes and handholds on climbing walls.

Disguise Work as Fun

Many activities that help children with ASD build hand strength are fun! Pinching clay and kneading dough build hand strength and fine motor coordination. Carrying a heavy object with a large, smooth handle (like a kettlebell) or mixing chocolate chip cookie dough with a wooden spoon are fun ways to build grip and isometric strength. Sorting puzzle pieces, blocks, marbles, and beads or pounding different shaped pegs into a pegboard are activities that give children a chance to use fine motor skills while enjoying play.

A Word About Handwriting

The goal of learning handwriting is to develop the skill of communicating in a written, rather than spoken, form. A fixation on forming perfect letters is counterproductive for children with autism. Legibility should be the goal. Help kids with handwriting skills by providing shorter, thicker pencils and crayons and wide-ruled paper or large pieces of butcher paper taped to a table or wall.

Dial down the pressure to make perfect block letters or create smooth, cursive writing. If a child can legibly print their name and write a simple sentence, count that as a win. Children with autism will be less stressed and happier when you let your perfectionism go. They deserve praise for the monumental effort they put in to form legible letters, words, and sentences, even if they don’t look perfect.

How Does Sensory Play Develop Problem-Solving Skills?

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 20:40:49 GMT

Sensory play helps to engage and develop a child’s ability to discern different colors, scents, sounds, textures, and tastes. It also helps children learn where their bodies are in space, and how to balance themselves as they move around. By watching their children learn through experience, some parents of children with sensory processing differences or autism spectrum disorders can almost instinctively answer the question, “how does sensory play develop problem-solving skills?” Nevertheless, continue reading to learn various ways sensory play can develop your child’s problem-solving skills.

Exploring the Environment

Sensory play offers the opportunity to touch and manipulate objects of different sizes, colors, and textures, giving a developing mind the chance to learn an object’s characteristics. Blocks fall down if stacked too high, clay flattens out if you pound it but makes a snake or a ball if you roll it, and sand runs through your fingers.

When children encounter an environment that offers a variety of sensory experiences, they instinctively want to explore. They become little scientists, combining observation with experimentation to learn the properties of different objects and substances. Throughout the process, they learn to develop a mental database of information that they can build on, make educated guesses, and create “if, then” assumptions that help them make sense of the world and overcome any obstacles they may encounter.

Becoming Sensitized to Sensory Input

The world can be a bright, noisy, crowded, and often contentious place. Sensory play, especially alongside or with other children, requires kids to learn to screen out what’s not important and focus on what they’re doing; whether that’s pouring water from one container to another or sorting objects by size and color.

Sensory play also helps kids develop the social skills they need to self-advocate; to ask for breaks or a few moments of solo play to help them calm down. Identifying strategies children can use to cope with an environment that overloads their sensory processing abilities is a problem-solving skill in itself.

Motor Skills

Developing motor skills involves more than learning eye/hand coordination and how to use your fingers (fine motor skills), or learning how to hop, skip, jump, run, or climb (grow motor skills) using your arms and legs. Using your body effectively involves planning and problem-solving. If a child wants to get from point A to point B in an obstacle course, they must figure out how to go over, under, or around obstacles while maintaining their balance and creating forward momentum.

Sensory integration therapy equipment typically includes balance beams, climbing walls, roller slides, tunnels, crash pads, and swings. These help children learn how to make good use of their proprioceptive (body awareness) senses and their vestibular system (balance). Putting together all the information their brains receive from their muscles, joints, and their vestibular system to make sense of how and when to move nudges kids to develop problem-solving skills. Sensory play gives kids the chance to practice this skill and learn how to assess and respond to what’s going on around them, helping them to take advantage of their experiences and cope with new physical challenges.

The Importance of Sensory Activities for Kids With Autism

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 18:55:33 GMT

Autistic brains have been shown to have substantially more neural connections, or synapses, than neurotypical brains. These synapses are the points in the brain where neurons, brain cells that transmit messages as electrical impulses and chemical signals, communicate with each other.

Children with autism have brains that didn’t undergo a full process of “neural pruning,” where excess synapses are removed from the brain. Instead, autistic brains retain excess synapses and don’t completely remove old or damaged cells through a clean-up process called “autophagy.”

Types of Autistic Behavior

Any parent of an autistic child knows that something very different is going on in their brain. Autistic kids generally fall into one of two camps: either the child is sensory avoiding or sensory seeking.

Sensory-avoiding kids are hypersensitive to stimuli like light, noise, textures, and tastes. Researchers have suggested that excess synapses are firing off when they don’t need to, overloading the brain with sensory information that is difficult to sort out, overwhelming the child, and causing extreme anxiety and discomfort.

Sensory-seeking kids need more sensory stimulation and often seek it through roughhousing and other physical games or activities, jumping, dancing, or crashing into things. Their brains are seeking more sensory input to better understand their environment.

The importance of sensory activities for kids with autism shows up in how they respond to sensory stimuli.

Sensory Activities and the Brain

Depending on a child’s individual needs, sensory activities may help calm an oversensitive brain or feed the needs of a sensory-seeking child. Kids may respond to textures, sounds, or physical stimulation from sensory gym equipment like roller slides, mini-trampolines, crash pads, climbing walls, and swings.

May autistic kids have difficulty with motor skills, either fine (writing or manipulating small things with their fingers) or gross (skipping, balance, and running). Sensory activities can help them develop these skills.

Proprioceptive and Vestibular Senses

Sensory activities are important for kids with autism because they challenge and help develop two significant sensory systems, in addition to the five we all learn about (sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell).

The proprioceptive sense gives our brains information about the internal state of our own bodies and where they are in space relative to other body parts and the environment around us. It tells us when we’re getting too close to an obstacle or when someone is getting too close to us. It communicates between muscles, joints, and the brain to provide this information.

The vestibular sense regulates balance with sensors located in the inner ear. Autistic kids may have difficulty with balance, as their brains are distracted by too much irrelevant information. Balance beams and games that require walking in a straight line or hopping on one leg (in a safe environment with mats and cushions) can help kids develop their sense of balance.

Physical and occupational therapists make use of sensory gyms to help autistic kids cope with their environment and learn to self-regulate. Royalty Sensory Gyms is a trusted designer and supplier of sensory gyms for therapy practices, schools, hospitals, hotels, and other institutions that want to provide a space for autistic children to play happily and take breaks when they need them.

7 Steps To Help Prevent Children With Autism From Wandering

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 19:45:44 GMT

All parents fear losing sight of their children. It’s the stuff of parental nightmares: look away for just a split second, and your child has disappeared.

For parents of autistic kids, the fear is ever-present, and the vigilance can be exhausting. Wherever they go with their autistic child, they see danger and the possibility their child could bolt and run—into a street, a public building, or woods by a park.

Every autism parent comes up with their own checklist to keep their child safe. Some kids will run if they see a dog or hear a siren. Others will challenge any type of physical barrier by climbing, opening doors or gates, or even crawling under fences.

Some kids wander until they find a calming sensory input, like water, or to visit favorite places like train stations, where they may love to watch trains whoosh by. However, both such areas can be life-threatening. An alarming percentage of autistic children who wander die tragically by drowning, and the next most common cause of death for an autistic child who wanders is being injured by a car.

Keeping track of an autistic child who can’t stand being around more than one person, panics at certain sounds, or melts down if it’s time to get off the swings is exhausting.

Parents can never let their guards down. But these seven steps to help prevent children with autism from wandering can ease some of the strain of keeping an autistic child within a defined area and in sight.

Prevention

Know your child’s triggers. What sets them off and might cause them to bolt or wander away? Try to avoid situations where you know the triggers, like bright lights, noise, crowds, or animals, will be present. If you can’t avoid the triggers, prepare your child with coping strategies and talk to them before you go about what they might encounter and how to handle it. Remind them that you’ll be there for them and that you can get through it together.

Security Measures

If you don’t already have them, add deadbolt locks to all your doors and make it difficult for your child to unlock them by using bolts that require a key on the inside as well as the outside, not just the turn of a knob. Make sure your windows lock and post visual reminders on your doors that warn your child not to open the door.

Install an alarm system that tells you when a door or window has been opened and a video doorbell that allows you to see where your child is going when they step outside. Fence your yard to a height your child can’t climb, with secure gates they can’t open. If you’re not sure you’ve covered every wandering risk at home, consult a home security expert and explain your concerns. They may discover more ways you can secure your home to prevent an autistic child from wandering off.

Bright Colors

Well-designed autism sensory playgrounds should account for the possibility of wandering, with fences and good sightlines so you can keep your child in view. But if you take your child to an outdoor activity or public event that you don’t expect to have made preparations regarding wandering, dress your child in bright, neon colors. That way, if your child wanders, you’ll be able to see them more easily. You’ll also have a description for searchers that will help them locate your child more effectively than just “khaki shorts and a blue shirt.”

Alerting First Responders

Make your local police and fire departments aware that your child is autistic and tends to wander. Provide pictures, a description of your child’s triggers, and a list of favorite places your child may attempt to reach when they wander. Most first responders have received at least some training in how to communicate with autistic people, and some may even have autistic kids of their own. They’ll be open to your concerns.

GPS Devices

Technology is your friend when it comes to an autistic child prone to wandering. Use ID bracelets equipped with GPS or location devices similar to those used to find stolen cars. This will help you and searchers find your child quickly and recognize the severity of the danger to your child present in the place they’ve wandered off to visit.

Enlisting Neighbors

Make all your neighbors aware of your child’s autism, and ask them to help you keep an eye out if your child wanders. Autism Speaks has a page of resources , including a caregiver toolkit, to help you inform neighbors and prepare caregivers to watch out for wandering and respond immediately if it happens.

It’s essential to alert neighbors who have swimming pools of the heightened danger to your child. All such pools are supposed to be fenced to minimize the dangers to all neighborhood kids. But children can drown in a few inches of water in a kiddie pool if they panic or if they’re injured or too little to understand how to extricate themselves.

Teach Your Child About Safety

With some autistic kids, wandering may be inevitable. Most important to their safety is making sure your child knows how to swim! Even if it’s just floating and dog paddling, swim lessons could save your child’s life. This could be exceedingly difficult if your child has a strong aversion to water. But exposure therapy, private lessons at a time when the pool isn’t crowded, and loads of patience can get you through it.

Simple phones designed for little kids are now available. They make it possible for kids to call their parents and for parents to know where their children (or more accurately, their phone) is at all times.

To prevent an autistic child from wandering, make a checklist of your preparations and revise it as necessary as your child grows and their routine changes.

If your child wanders, time is of the essence. Have an emergency plan in place with defined roles for everyone in the family and neighbors too. Assign who will be responsible for calling the police, who will alert neighbors, and who will immediately search your home and your child’s favorite destination.

Before wandering occurs, sit down and list every significant location and person that may be involved in a wandering incident. This includes teachers, therapists, recreation leaders, neighbors, and caregivers, along with first responders.

Give them all a copy of your emergency plan, your contact information, a list of what triggers your child to wander, run, or bolt, and a photograph of your child. Make sure you update your emergency plan as necessary whenever there’s a change in your child’s routine, school, therapy, or activities.

5 Great Ways To Keep Kids With ASD Physically Active

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 21:28:33 GMT

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Autistic children can be very selective about what kind of physical activity, if any, they prefer. Some self-soothe, or “stim,” with repetitive behaviors like rocking back and forth or flapping their hands. While stimming is movement, it usually doesn’t engage the whole body or provide substantive exercise with physical benefits.

Sensory-seeking kids may seem like they are in constant motion—jumping and bouncing around or crashing into things. Kids do this to try to get the sensory stimulation they crave. Such stimming doesn’t often result in improved motor skills or body awareness. These five great ways to keep kids with ASD physically active can help improve muscle tone, motor planning, balance, and even social skills.

Fun Heavy Work

Carrying a heavy bucket of water and pouring it out into a kiddie pool or slamming a heavy medicine ball from overhead down to the ground are resistance exercises disguised as fun. Resistance improves muscle tone and engages the proprioceptive sense where the brain processes information coming from the joints and muscles to tell us where different parts of our bodies are in space. Having a better sense of your body parts can be calming.

Yoga

The focus on breathing in yoga can soothe an anxious autistic child. The gentle movements and stretches of yoga help kids develop flexibility and coordination. In addition to keeping kids with ASD physically active, yoga requires high-strung kids to slow down, listen to directions, and focus on how their body feels.

Sensory Obstacle Course

Use a line of painter’s tape on the floor to make a “balance beam,” and place some blocks to step over or go around. You can build a sensory obstacle course at home with everyday objects like couch cushions, stepstools, and blankets to make tunnels to crawl through.

For some families, investing in indoor sensory play equipment may be worthwhile. Transforming the basement or a spare room into a play area is easy enough. Filling it with a hanging chair swing, monkey bars, a slide, a mini-climbing wall, and a gently lit cubbyhole for sensory breaks may be just what your child needs to ease anxiety and get the soothing sensory input they crave.

Walking

Walking is good exercise. Some autistic kids have phobias (of dogs or birds, for example) that may make them resistant to talking a walk outside. Start slowly by accompanying your child just as far as the end of the driveway. Gradually add a little distance to the nearest stop sign. Eventually, you’ll make it around the block or to the nearest public park.

Dancing

Dancing to music is fun for some autistic kids. It’s also something kids can do alone or alongside others. Inviting a few peers over for a dance party or bringing a Bluetooth speaker to a family picnic can encourage your child to get up and dance.

Studies show that kids with ASD are more likely to be overweight or obese, and childhood obesity often persists into adulthood. Keeping kids with ASD physically active may stave off these negative health effects.

Creating a Sensory Room at Home: Key Things To Consider

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 22:20:32 GMT

Parents of kids with sensory sensitivities instinctively respond to their child’s needs with patience, imagination, and ingenuity. This could include modifying the home environment. If there’s a room that can be devoted to a child’s sensory needs, parents can tailor it to serve their child in particular. When creating a sensory room at home, it’s important to consider sound, light, and safety.

Sound

Soothing music or ambient sounds, like ocean waves or running water, help some sensory-avoiding children calm down. Others may just crave quiet, and providing noise-canceling headphones or a space insulated against noise will help them calm themselves.

Sensory seekers might enjoy banging on a drum, pounding on a toy piano, or dancing to a playlist of their favorite songs.

Light

Many kids with sensory issues react strongly to bright light. A sensory room can contain fiber-optic lighting features, such as colored light strings or lava lamps. They can also include gently lit water features that kids can stare at for as long as they need in order to feel relief from over-stimulation.

Touch

Kids with tactile defensiveness can begin learning how to tolerate squishy, scratchy, or fuzzy textures with a sand table. Add a watering can to provide a chance to squish and play with texture.

Play clay, rice, beans, beads, buttons, shaving cream, and bits of fabric with different textures can offer fun play that provides a tactile experience. Keep in mind that only children who are beyond choking hazard dangers and who are not prone to putting everything in their mouths should be given these items.

Balance

Sensory rooms can include balance beams, exercise balls, or step features that challenge a child’s ability to balance. Use plenty of mats and padding in case of falls.

Swings give children the chance to experience how their bodies react when they feel unsteady. The repetitive motion of swings is soothing to many kids with sensory sensitivities.

Self-Perception and Muscle Control

Many autistic kids benefit from “deep pressure,” which they find soothing. Weighted blankets can provide relief without causing back troubles that can result from heavy school backpacks. Peapod chairs make a cozy “squeeze” place to lie back and read a book or listen to music. Monkey bars, climbing walls, ladders, and slides give kids a chance to work on coordination and build muscle strength.

Safety

Safety is a key thing to consider when creating a home sensory room. Sensory-seeking kids often literally bounce off the walls. They may jump, run, dance, or hug too hard. Their lack of perception about where their bodies are in space can cause them to try dangerous things like jumping from heights or socially awkward behaviors like getting too close to others.

Providing mats and crash pads in a sensory space is essential, as is other basic safety equipment like smoke detectors and fire exits. Make sure your child can get out of the room once they enter it.

Parents know their child’s needs best and can identify if their child is a sensory seeker, avoider, or some combination of the two. At Royalty Sensory Gyms, we can advise parents on what types of equipment they could include in a home sensory gym to best serve their child’s need for sensory play, for a break from overstimulation, or for just plain fun in a safe and beneficial environment.

6 Social Skills Activities Perfect for Children With Autism

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 15:34:28 GMT

There’s perhaps no feeling more heartbreaking for a parent than watching a child who desperately wants to make friends but doesn’t know how to. People often label kids with autism as socially aloof and disinterested.

It may not be that these kids are disinterested. It could be that the environment or the pressure to communicate verbally is too overwhelming. There’s hope, though, for helping children with autism with their social skills. Thankfully, there are ways to help improve their social skills. Here are six social skills activities perfect for children with autism.

Making Faces

Help your child learn facial expressions by playing a face game. Start with basic mirroring or “copy me” games. Stick out your tongue, and then say, “Your turn!”

Your child may repeat the gesture or come up with one of their own. This encourages observation of facial expressions and corresponding emotions.

Emotion Cards

You can supplement the face game with emotion flash cards. These have simple emoji-like faces on them. Show a card to your child and ask, “How does this person feel?” Your child can practice understanding how faces convey emotion.

Acting Out Social Stories

Act out introducing yourself to someone new. You may have to offer some cues. Say “hello! How are you today?” and then “and you say,” to get things going. You can practice introductions, handshakes, and what to do when someone else wants to play with your toys or join your game.

When you’ve had lots of practice, try taking your child out to a sensory playground. Many municipalities have installed playground equipment that includes roller slides, monkey bars, and balance beams, which are great activities for kids with autism. This is a perfect environment to test out skills for interacting with other kids, taking turns, and playing imagination games.

Tossing the Ball

Teach turn-taking and develop short-term memory with a game of toss the ball, another fun game for autistic children . Kids say their name when they catch the ball and immediately toss it to another person. After the first round, the person with the ball must say the name of the person they’re going to toss the ball to before throwing it.

Music Matching

A pot and a wooden spoon make a drum: tap out a rhythm and have your child repeat it. Then, add something to it. See how many rounds of tap-and-copy you can complete before your child misses matching the rhythm. Then, let them start the next round, and you match what they tap. This teaches listening skills and reciprocation in conversation and activities.

Eyes on the Prize

Teaching an alternative strategy to eye contact, which is painful for many people with autism, helps teach kids to look at something close to the face that gives the impression of eye contact.

Put a small stuffed animal or beanbag on your head. Tell your child that if they can look at it for five seconds, they can have it. Gradually increase the amount of time. Add questions, like “is it a frog or a turtle?” A correct answer transfers the toy to the child.

These are six simple social skills activities for children with autism. Ask your child’s teachers and therapists for more ideas of social skills games that they’ve seen work. For more information on adding a new sensory gym to your home to provide social skills activities for your autistic child, contact Royalty Sensory Gyms today.

The Best Games To Play for Children With Sensory Issues

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 15:46:11 GMT

Every child is unique, with their own temperament, interests, and preferences, but most children learn through play. Kids with neurodivergent brains process issues differently than most. This may result in strong reactions to sensory stimulation. Sensory play could help them with their responses.

This type of play involves games and activities that stimulate the senses, offering an opportunity to practice processing sensory information. Kids who demonstrate “sensory seeking” behavior, like jumping, crashing into things, or hugging too hard, may benefit from sensory play that gives them a safe way to get the sensory stimulation they need.

When parents notice unusual reactions to sensory stimuli, they often instinctively create activities that soothe or please their kids. They find ways for their little sensory seeker to “burn off excess energy.” They may push their child on a swing for what seems like hours.

Coupled with activities that address sensory issues in a fun and engaging way, kids with autism and those with sensory processing or sensory integration disorders can develop strategies to help themselves cope when incoming sensory information overwhelms or confuses them.

Some of the best games to play for children with sensory issues look a lot like simple, everyday fun, but these games and activities provide a “sensory diet” that soothes sensory-avoiding children or addresses the need for sensory stimulation that sensory-seeking kids display.

Seven, Not Five, Senses

Everyone learns that there are five senses—sight, smell, taste, touch, and smell. But there are actually seven senses. The other two are the vestibular and the proprioceptive senses.

The vestibular sense regulates the inner ear and tells the body where it is relative to the ground. In simple terms, the vestibular sense is our sense of balance.

The proprioceptive sense tells us about the state of our own bodies: it’s what processes the nerve responses to heat, cold, and movement. It tells us where our feet are relative to our arms and legs, and where our bodies are relative to the space around us. It lets us monitor our inner state, whether we feel well or sick, and helps us gauge how much space we should keep between ourselves and others.

Sensory games offer controlled sensory experiences that help develop these senses while also soothing an overstimulated child or providing the extra stimulation that a child with sensory-seeking behavior needs.

The best games to play for children with sensory issues engage all seven senses, though not necessarily all at once, and help kids get the sensory information they need from their environment while also having fun.

Parents can create their own home sensory gym for their children. It can be a dedicated room in the house, a corner of the family room, or a section of a finished basement. The main point is to simply provide games and activities that children can select when they need a certain type of sensory input, which they perceive as simply choosing what to play with next.

Never use small objects in sensory play that present choking hazards. Never take your eyes off a child around water: toddlers can drown in just a few inches of water, so if you use water play, be there to play with your child, and empty any bins or buckets immediately when playtime is over.

Play Clay

Squishing, pounding, rolling, and sculpting with play clay stimulates tactile senses, and the proprioceptive sense that tells us how hard to pound or squeeze. Creating clay people and animals with your child can also stimulate language development and imaginative play.

Play With Food

Put foods with different textures onto a baking sheet, and let your child smash, smear, and finger paint with them. Yes, it will be messy, but it will also stimulate tactile responses. Kids will likely try the foods they’re playing with, too, providing a taste experience. Just be sure to differentiate between playtime and dinnertime so that there’s no playing with food at the table.

You can also use food to stimulate the sense of smell. For a pre-school or kindergartener, put foods with strong odors in a paper cup, ask your child to close their eyes, and hold the cup where they can smell it. Use strong smelling foods like coffee, garlic, or onions, as well as pleasant smelling foods like bananas or strawberries, to help your child learn to identify smells.

If you don’t want to waste food for play, make non-toxic homemade play clay. Recipes abound online. Separate your completed batch of clay into four or five paper cups, and add flavorings like vanilla, mint, almond, lemon, and cinnamon. Help your child identify each smell—but don’t let them eat the clay!

Name That Sound

Crinkle some paper, bounce a ball, or play ringtones behind your back. Ask your child to identify the sound. You can also do this with musical instruments: listen to a recording designed to introduce your child to the different sounds of the orchestra. Teach them how to differentiate between the instruments that make each kind of sound, plus whether it is a “low” or “high” sound.

Blanket Tent

Create a retreat for a child with sensory-avoidant behavior by throwing a blanket over a few chairs to make a tent. Put a soft mat, pillows, or futon inside to sit on, and include a cool light (that won’t create a fire or choking hazard) and a streaming device playing ambient sounds like ocean waves or “sleep music” to give your child a sensory break.

Obstacle Course

Mark out a “balance beam” on the floor using a masking tape or ribbon, and challenge your child to walk across it without "falling off." This can be just the first challenge of your indoor obstacle course: include shoe boxes to jump over, collapsible tunnels to crawl through, and crash pads made of couch cushions to crawl over.

Water and Sand

Some children find running their hands through sand, or scooping and digging in it, very soothing, The same is true for pouring water. Create a sensory box using a plastic bin filled with water or sand, and give your child cups, spoons, and scoops to dig around, pour, and play.

You can also put water in several different containers and add food coloring. Allow your child to mix and pour in the tub or into a plastic basin to hear the sounds and see the colors blending.

Find the Texture

Create a tactile scavenger hunt in your home. Ask your child to find three soft things, three hard things, three sticky things, or three scratchy things. Vary the challenge each time you play to find objects with different textures.

Certified occupational therapists can help parents create fun games at home to bolster therapy and maintain gains in sensory processing. Whatever activities you choose, remember the point is to have fun with your child and help them feel happy and free from anxiety.

Ways To Incorporate Sensory Play Into Your Daily Routine

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 21:37:52 GMT

Children with autism and other kids with sensory processing issues benefit from play that exposes them to different sensory experiences. Try a few ways to incorporate sensory play into your daily routine.

Identify Your Child’s Sensory Style

Sensory play will seem more like work, or worse, punishment, if it challenges your child’s sensory style too fast. Some kids are sensory averse, strongly negatively reacting to sounds, light, textiles, or foods.

Other kids demonstrate a “sensory-seeking” style. These children are constantly in motion—jumping, bouncing, or fidgeting. Sensory-seeking kids may also seek sensory input by hugging too hard, standing too close, or showing a strong preference for spicy foods.

Once you know your child’s sensory style, you can incorporate sensory play into your daily routine that your child will enjoy, which will be calming to help them release anxiety or excess energy.

Notice Sensory Opportunities in Your Daily Life

Everyone has to get up in the morning, get dressed, eat breakfast, and get on with their day. We reverse the process at night, from eating dinner to changing into our pajamas.

Use these routines to encourage your child to better use their sensory systems to understand their environment and reactions to it. Remember balance and body awareness along with touch, taste, sound, vision, and smell.

Encourage your child to choose their clothing for the day (within reason!) by color (visual perception), by texture (Is it soft? Is it scratchy?). Play a game of morning (or evening) sounds to help organize auditory processing—notice birds, the sound of bathwater running, or traffic on the street. Incorporate music if your child loves it and dance a little if you have a sensory-seeker who loves to move.

For kids who avoid sensory stimulation, consider easing into the day with dimmer lighting, or having your child join you in a morning yoga routine.

Sensory Snacks

One way to incorporate sensory play into your daily routine is to set aside time for “sensory snacks.” At the same time each day, allow your child to choose a sensory activity, such as jumping on a mini trampoline, bouncing on an exercise ball, or dancing to music.

You can keep a plastic bin filled with sand or water for tactile play, or create a sensory bin filled with pom poms, play clay, or pebbles (but watch out for choking hazards. Never give small items that could pose a choking risk to young children.)

Sensory-avoiding kids may enjoy a break in a private place, such as a tent in the corner, their bedroom with very gentle lighting, or a calming feature to look at, like a lava lamp or bubble tower.

Ask your occupational therapist, if your child has one, for suggestions on what kind of sensory play to incorporate into your child’s daily routine to offer gentle exposure to new sensory experiences or to offer calming activities that address your child’s unique sensory needs. A professional therapist can help you select additional indoor sensory play equipment to help your child feel better regulated and less anxious.

Important Design Factors for Autism-Friendly Playgrounds

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 14:59:57 GMT

Schools and communities are catching on to the concept of inclusive recreation. Learn important design factors for autism-friendly playgrounds.

Most people in the U.S. understand the concept of accessibility. We expect curb-cuts, wide doorways, and large bathroom stalls with grab bars that accommodate people with various abilities. Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) requires public playgrounds to be “accessible.”

Accessibility isn’t the same as inclusivity. Children with “invisible” developmental disabilities like autism should be welcomed at public playgrounds, too. As you advocate for greater inclusivity in your community, learn important design factors for autism-friendly playgrounds.

Fence It

While maintaining accessible entrances as required by the ADA, surround your playground with an attractive fence that’s not easy to climb. Some autistic children are prone to wandering or running off at a moment’s notice. Keeping kids within a defined, safe space where parents and caregivers can be confident that children won’t wander off is an important design factor for autism-friendly playgrounds.

Organize It

Cluster similar types of play equipment in defined areas, with easy to identify paths leading to groups of play equipment. Use a different colored rubber pathway to define navigation throughout the playground, leading children easily from one area to the next.

Include Sensory Experiences

A sand table or sandbox, water features, and musical features help kids with different sensory abilities experience textures and sounds in a controlled environment. An autism sensory playground includes features that offer a variety of sensory equipment and experiences that engage sight with color; sound with bells, trickling water, speaking tubes, or drums; touch with textures or pressure, like slides made of rollers instead of smooth plastic; and even smell with fragrant flowers in garden areas.

Incorporate a Seclusion Area

Autistic kids need a place to take a break when they are feeling overwhelmed by excessive sensory input. In school, many learn the skill of asking for a break when they need one. Make sure the playground includes a sheltered space, like a playhouse, cave, or roofed section of playground equipment where kids who need alone time can rest.

Autistic kids are interested in other kids, but they may have barriers to interaction. Lack of confidence in social or communication skills, excess noise, or too little “personal space” can impact a child’s desire to play with others.

Autistic kids greatly benefit from “parallel play,” where they can play near but not with other kids. Parallel play also allows kids to observe each other from a comfortable distance. It may take years, but the day will come when an autistic child musters up enough courage to approach other kids, or to include themselves in group play. Make sure your playground is ready with autism-friendly playground designs and equipment. Call Royalty Sensory Gyms today to find out more about how to create a sensory-friendly playground that children with ASD will love.

The Benefits Music Can Have for Autistic Children

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 17:26:46 GMT

Many autistic children have an uncanny ability to memorize song lyrics, identify the sounds of different musical instruments, or learn how to play an instrument before they’re able to talk. Music has benefits for everyone, but the benefits music can have for autistic children are therapeutic and recreational.

Music Can Reduce Anxiety

Many autistic children display a heightened level of anxiety. The pressure to respond, perform, or interact can be overwhelming because these things are intensely uncomfortable for them. Music can have a calming effect.

Improves Communication

Music therapists have used music to help autistic children express their emotions or regulate their behavior. “Moving to the beat” can help harness sensory-seeking behavior and help a child who is bounding off the walls substitute dancing, stomping, or clapping for the potentially dangerous activity.

The rhythm of music can help autistic kids learn the cadence of speech or conversation, and music education can help them with social skills like cooperation, taking turns, and regulating the volume of their voices.

A 2018 study from the University of Montreal found that children participating in music therapy interventions had higher communication scores than a non-musical intervention group. The music group’s scores for connectivity between the visual and auditory parts of the brain were lower after the intervention, which was viewed as a positive as autistic brains are classified as “overconnected.” Functional brain connectivity was better. The study concluded that two to three months of individual music intervention could improve communication in autistic children.

Improves Motor Function

Hearing and motor functions are regulated in the same area parts of the brain. When exposed to music, autistic children can better coordinate their sensory inputs, improving motor skills.

Coupled with other forms of therapy, including using sensory integration therapy equipment , music can help autistic kids by reducing their frustration at being unable to communicate, helping them develop better social skills, and making them feel less anxious.

Many parents of autistic kids employ songs and music as soothers instinctively. Kids remember the lyrics of “teaching” songs, such as songs about how to say please and “thank you” or how to get dressed in the morning. Ask your speech and occupational therapist for recommendations for a music therapist to maximize the benefit of music for your autistic child.

The Best Sports for Individuals With ASD To Try

Erika.Tames@logicalposition.com (Erika Tames) — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 21:41:45 GMT

It’s a myth that people with autism spectrum disorder are unable to participate in sports. While many kids with autism do have trouble with fine motor skills, balance, and body awareness, participating in sporting activities can help.

Additionally, learning the rules of a game and understanding banter between teammates can be challenging for people with ASD. However, that’s not to say that people on the spectrum can’t enjoy team-based activities; Sports Illustrated ran a 2016 profile of several athletes and how they learned to cope with these challenges.

As a parent, no one knows your child better than you. Your choices will vary depending on your child’s unique sensitivities and challenges. Though participation in these activities will depend on their comfort level, here are some of the best sports for individuals with ASD to try.

Individual Sports

Solo sports may offer a person with ASD the chance to be a part of a team without the anxieties of social interaction, complicated rules, and complex communication that team sports can present. Some sports that may fit this category include:

Track and cross country
Table tennis
Golf
Horseback riding
Martial arts
Swimming
Gymnastics
Archery

The focus in these sports is on individual achievement, but the solo effort contributes to team success.

When you take your child to a park with an autism sensory playground , observe whether your child engages in parallel play or if they are attempting to join group activities.

Team Sports

Some people with autism thrive in team sports. Their dogged determination, infinite tolerance for repetitive practice, and ability to screen out distractions to achieve laser-like focus on just one thing can be a benefit in team sports.

We’ve all seen those YouTube videos of the astonishing half-court 3-pointers sunk by an autistic player in the last seconds of a game. People with ASD should try sports that align with their intense interests. Follow your child’s passions, such as:

Baseball
Basketball
Hockey
Soccer
Lacrosse

Getting the Coach’s Buy-In

By now, experienced coaches should have had many years working with teams that include autistic players. They should know about modifications that can help their players and be willing to work with you to discover the best way for your child to participate. They can also help other team members learn to be supportive.

If you have one, check with your regional special education recreation association for assistance in getting your child involved. These organizations provide team sports with facilitators who are trained to understand players with differences. Some even sponsor athletes for the Special Olympics.

Too many young people with ASD are out of shape. Offering the chance to participate in sports can improve fitness and even decrease anxiety. Be prepared for some social and emotional bumps on the way, but overall, participating in sports could be an entry for your child to gain greater social skills and independence.

5 Ways Sensory Gyms Can Benefit Teens and Adults With Autism

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 22:17:41 GMT

Most publicly provided services for persons with disabilities end at age 22. Parents of children with autism often view that milestone with dread, referring it to “the cliff.” They often feel that their children will get thrown out into a world that they may not be prepared to handle. These worries are even greater for parents of young adults with severe disabilities.

Another concern is physical fitness. Finding age-appropriate sensory activities for adults and teens becomes more difficult when they leave school. Once people with autism “age out” of the public school system, they no longer have access to the regularly scheduled gym classes that provided them with the chance to move and play. Many special recreation districts and associations help with robust programming, but there’s still the challenge of encouraging autistic young adults to try new things, make new friends, and participate in new activities. Some take to it, while others become extremely anxious at the prospect of new transportation schedules, new group facilitators, and unfamiliar recreational facilities.

With no therapy or social skills groups organized for them, parents and young adults with autism often feel that they’re on their own to cobble together therapies, activities, and jobs to fill their days. For physical fitness, they’re left with family activities or playgrounds designed for toddlers.

Sensory gyms can help. More institutions are beginning to recognize that autism doesn’t go away at age 22 and that adults with autism need environments suited for their needs to exercise and calm themselves when the world becomes too much. Hospitals, hotels, municipal recreation centers, and public parks and playgrounds can all be more inclusive by offering equipment that serves everyone , including the neurodiverse and physically challenged population.

If you’re an advocate for a person with autism, consider presenting these five ways that sensory gyms can benefit teens and adults with autism to your local park district and other organizations and institutions that serve your community. You may convince them to construct a sensory playground in your community that’s inclusive for teens and young adults with autism, physically disabled persons, and neurotypical and physically able people alike.

What Is a Sensory Gym?

Sensory gyms can be described as therapeutic environments disguised as playgrounds or fitness clubs. They contain equipment that helps persons with autism or sensory processing or sensory integration disorders (SID) develop their sensory abilities.

In a sensory gym, you’ll find a collection of equipment that may include swings, climbing walls, monkey bars, zip lines, balance beams, roller slides, mini trampolines, and “crash pads” (piles of thick, soft mats to crash into or jump onto). These pieces of equipment help gym users develop balance and body awareness while building physical strength.

In a comprehensive, well-designed sensory gym, you’ll also see built-in quiet areas, where persons with autism can retreat to take a break. These may be darkened, quiet spaces that contain soothing light features such as lava lamps, bubble lights, or aquariums to allow gym users to take a sensory break and relax for a while, away from the activity in the rest of the gym.

The equipment in a sensory gym is also common in occupational therapy and some physical therapy environments that treat pediatric patients. But sensory gyms can also help teens and adults with autism in the following ways and more:

Continued Development

Many parents of children with autism know that their kids are on different developmental timelines than neurotypical kids. Learning to dress themselves and, especially, tasks that require fine motor skills can be challenges for these kids, and conquering them can take many extra months or even years—but conquer them they do, eventually.

Gross motor skills can also be challenges. Children with developmental differences may take longer to learn to walk, or they might develop odd gaits. They sometimes have trouble “crossing the midline,” (reaching across from one side of their bodies to the other) or with bilateral movement (using both sides of their bodies together to move). They may have trouble with balance (the vestibular system)and with knowing where parts of their own bodies are relative to the environment around them (their proprioceptive sense).

For people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, learning doesn’t stop when they graduate from high school. Sensory gyms provide opportunities for these people to continue developing motor skills. They also give young adults the chance to continue to develop sensory perception, particularly their vestibular and proprioceptive systems.

Social Opportunities

One of the biggest sensory gym benefits for teens and adults is the opportunity to connect with others like themselves. For many teens and young adults with autism, school is their main source of social contact. When they graduate from transition programs the day before they turn 22, their primary source of organized social contact disappears. Sensory gyms in accessible places such as public recreation facilities provide a place for classmates who grew up together in special education programs to continue to meet up. They also motivate teens and young adults with autism to get out into their communities, where they’ll have a chance to make new friends.

Fitness

A troubling truth about growing up with autism is that teens with autism are twice as likely than neurotypical teens to be obese. Difficulty with gross motor skills, trouble understanding the rules of games, and the overwhelming, noisy environments of physical play and team sports can cause teens with autism to withdraw from many forms of physical activity.

This is why sensory activities for teens and adults are so crucial. Sensory gyms provide familiar environments for most teens and adults with autism. At some point in their childhoods, they likely will have encountered the swings, monkey bars, and crash pads they’d see in a sensory gym. This familiarity may encourage more movement.

When a teen or adult spends time in a sensory gym with others with similar conditions, they may also face the social challenge of waiting their turn or negotiating who gets to use which piece of equipment next. These types of social skills are necessary to succeed in ordinary life in the community, and sensory gyms can offer practice. For sensory-seeking autistic persons or persons with SID who crave deeper sensory stimulation, a sensory gym also provides the opportunity to literally “bounce off the walls” or safely jump from heights.

Cognition

Motor planning is a cognitive skill. To climb a wall, you must plan where to put your hands and feet now and next. Sensory gyms offer opportunities for physical problem-solving in a fun way, through climbing, hand-over-hand motions, or walking on a balance beam.

Sensory Diet

Left to their own devices, some teens and young adults with autism will choose isolation. Rather than having to cope with loud noises, bright lights, or crowded places, they often show a strong preference for the known environment of home. But hanging around home all the time isn’t a healthy or realistic lifestyle, and at some point, these persons must venture out into the world. Sensory gyms offer a “sensory diet” of experiences that can help teens and adults develop strategies to endure environments that make them feel anxious. They can practice recognizing when they begin to feel overwhelmed. Then, they can decide what to do when they begin to feel that way, whether it’s asking for a break, retreating to the isolation area, or changing from the monkey bars to the swings.

Consult an occupational therapist for more information that could help you advocate for construction of a sensory gym in your community. To learn more about creating a gym with sensory activities for adults and teens, give the experts at Royalty Sensory Gyms a call today !

What Are Common Sensory Integration Activities?

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 15:05:38 GMT

When a therapeutic environment looks like a playground, kids with sensory issues may be more enthusiastic about doing the work necessary to help them. These common sensory integration activities are easy to recreate at home or out in the community.

Remember to introduce these activities gently, and never push a child beyond their tolerance levels. It takes time to allow the brain to develop a better ability to process sensory information. Let your child be your guide about their comfort level and their timeline.

Swings

A staple of sensory gym equipment , swings develop the vestibular (balance) sense. If you have the space, set up a backyard swing set or hang a swing securely from the ceiling in your child’s bedroom. Swinging helps children receive and react to sensory information about where their body is relative to the ground.

Play Clay, Sandboxes, Water Play

Kids with strong tactile sensitivities need the opportunity to experience different tactile sensations in a gentle, gradual way. Kneading, pounding, and squishing play clay, allowing sand to run through their fingers, or splashing water at bath time can help kids with tactile challenges. They learn to process tactile information and reduce their anxiety when encountering new tactile sensations.

Rocking Horse or Chair

Like swings, rocking horses or chairs are an essential bit of equipment for home sensory integration activities. Kids who find rocking motions calming can spend hours happily rocking or riding. However, be conscious of overstimulation, and regulate the amount of time your child may spend in these activities, especially if they are sensory seeking. Your child may rock vigorously, potentially damaging furniture or even falling off their horse or out of their chair.

Climbing and Monkey Bars

Many public parks now include kid-sized climbing walls. Most have monkey bars and others have mini-zip lines. All these options offer the opportunity to build both the vestibular (balance) sense and the proprioceptive sense (awareness of body position.) Using this equipment requires kids to use hand-over-hand or cross-body motion (crossing the midline). This equipment helps improve core strength and develop bi-lateral integration, or the ability to coordinate both sides of the body at once.

Heavy Work

Sensory-seeking kids always seem on the go, literally bouncing off the walls! They aren’t getting sufficient information from their bodies relative to their surroundings, so they seek extreme stimulation to get in touch with their muscles and joints—developing their proprioceptive sense.

Pushing, pulling, and carrying heavier objects can help these kids settle down. Games that involve tossing heavy bean bag toys, carrying books or grocery bags, or pushing and pulling carts or wagons can help children with proprioceptive problems. These common sensory integration activities help kids learn to recognize where parts of their bodies are relative to other body parts and their surroundings.

Activities To Help Autistic Children With Self-Regulation

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 18:53:30 GMT

Many autistic children have trouble managing their emotional responses to social interactions or sensory stimulation (or the lack of it). When they feel stressed, disappointed, angry, or anxious, they may respond with tantrums, defiance, or extreme attention-seeking behavior.

The ability to think before acting, remain calm when anxious or frustrated, cooperate, or endure delayed gratification (dessert comes after dinner) are aspects of the life skill known as self-regulation.

Through observation of your autistic child’s behavior, you will already be familiar with environments that calm them, and those that send them into a tailspin. Here are some activities to help autistic children with self-regulation.

Coping Strategies

You may use these yourself to remain calm when your child’s becomes overwhelmed:

Breathing deeply
Counting to 10 (or 20, or 50!)
Taking a break, or walking away
Asking for help
Listening to soothing music
Hugging a stuffed animal, or stroking a favorite blanket
Distracting the senses with crunchy snacks
Dimming the lights

Emotional Chart

Special educators and occupational therapists often create laminated “emotional chart” tables with graphics of faces that depict different emotional states, ranging from very upset or angry to “okay” to happy. Children can point to the picture that best describes how they’re feeling in one column. Then, they can tell you what is making them feel that way, and you can use a dry erase marker to write it in an adjacent column.

Talk with the child about if their reaction matched what happened, and whether there is a more appropriate response. Explain that it’s okay to be upset by something that happened, and know that the child may not yet understand the appropriate response for certain situations.

Heavy Work

Many autistic kids are calmed by activities that require resistance-type exertion, like playing with modeling clay, carrying heavy books from a desk to a shelf, moving desks or chairs, climbing, or using resistance bands.

Sensory playgrounds incorporate heavy work activities like fun play. These playgrounds include climbing walls, zip lines, monkey bars, or other activities that require the child to work against their own body weight, providing soothing resistance.

Games and Social Stories

Following the rules of a game requires self-regulation, and can help kids learn how to do other school-related things that are difficult for them, like staying in line, or remaining seated. Try Freeze Tag, Simon Says, Musical Chairs (which can challenge emotional self-regulation when the group is down to the last chair!), Duck Duck Goose, or Red Light, Green Light.

Social stories help kids work through everyday situations that require self-regulation, like sharing toys, or being mad at a friend. You can read a social story to your child and discuss how the characters responded—or should have responded—to what happened, and how they felt about it.

Ask your therapists and special educators for more suggestions of activities to help autistic children with self-regulation, and remind yourself to be patient. Processing all this can take a very long time, but with love and belief that your child can do it, you will see significant progress!

10 Fun Sensory Play Activities for Children with Autism

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 18:40:17 GMT

Children on the autism spectrum may have heightened sensitivity to noise, textures, lights, or crowds. Certain activities and games can help autistic kids learn to manage their sensitivities and better cope with a complex and often overwhelming world.

Why Sensory Activities Are Important

Sensory perception extends beyond the five senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. The primary additional systems are the vestibular and proprioceptive systems and interoception.

The vestibular system is the source of balance. Regulated by the inner ear, the vestibular system works with sight to help us stand up, sit up straight, and avoid falling. It helps us know where we are in space relative to other objects, so we don’t bump into things.

The proprioceptive system tells us where the parts of our bodies are relative to each other and sends signals to the brain about appropriate levels of muscular force. Proprioception helps us know how hard or gently to hug, what it takes to crack an egg, and how tightly to shake a hand.

The proprioceptive system makes it possible to ascend stairs without looking down, type without looking at our hands, and touch our noses with our eyes closed.

Interoception tells us about the internal state of the body, from stomach aches to heart palpitations.

Sensory activities help children with sensory issues practice using these systems to understand how their bodies can move safely through space, and how to physically interact with their environment without injury to themselves or others. It helps with balance, coordination, and self-regulation.

Occupational therapists use sensory equipment to develop these abilities in children with autism and sensory integration difficulties.

Sensory play also helps stimulate communication, especially when parents talk to their children about what they’re doing together.

These 10 fun sensory play activities for children with autism we gathered from several online sources may help parents and caregivers encourage a child on the spectrum to learn more about their sensory abilities, so they can better cope with the many types of sensory stimuli that confront all of us each day.

Please Note: As always, be attentive to choking hazards, use non-toxic materials, and choose activities that won’t immediately overwhelm your child—as a parent, you know your child’s triggers better than anyone else.

Whipped Cream or Food Finger Painting

Use a few small bowls of whipped cream, colored with food coloring, to allow your child to create paintings on paper, or washable masterpieces on windows. You can also provide squishable food items, such as berries, avocados, chocolate sauce, or bananas to allow your child to squish and smear a painting on paper or cardboard.

Shape Sorting

For kids beyond the choking hazard stage, build fine motor skills by mixing up different shapes, sizes, and colors of dried pasta, beans, buttons, or fluffy pom poms. Provide a pair of soft silicone tongs, child-safe scoopers, or oversized plastic tweezers, and have the child sort the items by color, size, or type into a muffin tin, cardboard boxes, or small bowls.

Sensory Walk

Remember those Halloween houses that made you stick your hands into a bowl of peeled grapes or slimy spaghetti, representing “eyeballs” and “guts,” before they’d give you a treat? You can adapt that creepy practice by creating a more pleasant outdoor “sensory walk.”

Create a path of plastic bins on your patio, deck, or in your yard. Fill them with materials that have different textures. You could have one bin filled with sand, another with water, and others with things like dried leaves that crunch into pieces when your child grasps them.

Scented Play Clay

Add some flavoring extracts to your favorite non-toxic clay recipe. You can make your clay smell like almonds, lemon, or vanilla. While your child explores the texture of the clay, the extracts also stimulate their sense of smell.

Pouring Station

Recreate bath time fun with a pouring station. Fill different-sized containers with water dyed different colors with food coloring. Encourage your child to pour water from the containers into a larger clear plastic bin and observe how the colors change as they combine. Pouring also gives your child the chance to enjoy the sound of water pouring.

Homemade Instruments

Gather a variety of clean, empty plastic bottles, and fill them halfway with rice or beans to make instruments to shake. Make drums out of inverted plastic tubs or saucepans, rattles out of threaded buttons, and create wind chimes out of old bent spoons strung together and hung from a coat hanger.

Kids with an aversion to sound can start gently with the shakers, and slowly move up to enjoying banging on a drum. If your child is a sensory seeker, get ready for the sounds of a budding percussionist!

Build a Sensory Gym

Construct your own home sensory gym for your child to play in. Use couch cushions to create a path of “jumping stones” and encourage your child to hop from one to the next. Create tunnels with blankets draped over chairs, and balance beams made from pool noodles or rolled-up rugs. Use mats or other cushioning in case of tumbles. Be sure there is plenty of clear space around your obstacle course, so your child won’t bump their head or hurt themselves if they fall.

You can create obstacle courses outdoors, with kiddie pools, hurdles, 2x4 balance beams, or anything else you have lying around that could make a safe “obstacle” for kids to climb, jump over, go under, or walk through.

Ice Blocks of Toys

Gather a dozen or more small toys. Put a third of the toys in the bottom of a plastic container that will fit in your freezer, cover the toys with water, and freeze. Repeat to make three layers of frozen toys (this may take a day or two).

When the ice block of toys is solid, remove it from the container and place it into a larger plastic bin and give your child safe tools to free the toys from the ice. They could use a spray bottle of warm water, a toy hammer, or a large metal spoon. Your child will learn about how much force they need to use to chip away at the ice, and how warm water affects ice.

Bubbles

Who doesn’t love blowing bubbles? Make it more interesting by creating long bubble “dragons.” Cut off the bottom of a plastic bottle and cover it with a sock. Pull the sock over the bottle and fold it back or secure it with a rubber band to make a tight fit. Dip the end covered with the sock into the bubble mixture, and blow through the top end of the bottle to make long, snake-like bubbles.

Word Matching

Print and laminate labels for everyday objects, like “chair,” “table,” “pillow,” or “book.” Mix your labels up in a bowl. Have your child choose one and match it with the object it identifies.

If your child isn’t ready for reading yet, use numbers to match with pictures of groups of objects, colors, or pictures of animals to match with their stuffed counterparts.

Parents can use their creativity to think of many more fun sensory activities for autistic kids to build balance, develop fine motor skills, address sensory-seeking behaviors, and increase tactile awareness and tolerance for textures. Ask your occupational therapist for additional suggestions.

5 Key Features That Should Be in Every Sensory Gym

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 19:01:03 GMT

Children on the autism spectrum and those with separate sensory processing issues benefit from play and therapy in specially designed environments called sensory rooms or sensory gyms. These occupational therapy sensory gyms contain play equipment that helps kids develop balance, fine motor skills, a better sense of physical control over their bodies, and a tolerance for different textures.

They also provide areas for retreat so that a child on the verge of a meltdown can take a break and learn strategies for soothing themselves. Kids who find sensory stimulation overwhelming may engage in sensory avoidance. They may separate themselves from groups of people, noise, or bright lights, and they should have a place to go when they need a calmer environment.

By contrast, some kids display “sensory-seeking” behavior. They crash into things, hug other kids way too hard, or need to jump and bounce too much in classrooms that require extended periods of sitting still. They may engage in dangerous behaviors like jumping from heights, breaking things, or self-harm like slapping, pinching, or banging their heads. These kids need safe alternatives to get the sensory stimulation they seek. Sensory gym environments can provide that kind of stimulation.

Where To Find Sensory Gyms

The most likely place to find a sensory gym is at an occupational therapy practice. Certified occupational therapists use sensory integration therapy equipment in gym-like settings, with swings, slides, climbing walls, crash pads, and monkey bars to help kids gain more control over their bodies and their reactions to their environments.

Therapy is designed to develop children’s sensory systems. In addition to the five senses we all learn as children (sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing), autistic kids and children with sensory processing issues need help with the vestibular and proprioceptive sensory systems.

The vestibular system regulates balance and helps humans understand where their bodies are in space relative to other objects around them. The vestibular sense keeps us from crashing into walls or bumping into obstacles in our paths while staying upright and not falling.

The proprioceptive system sends signals to the brain about where the different parts of our bodies are in relation to each other. Proprioception makes it possible to play the piano without looking at the keys or bust a move on the dance floor.

With the increasing number of children diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum and having sensory processing issues, you can now find sensory gym equipment in schools, hospitals, and homes. When you take your child to a sensory gym, look for these five key features that should be in every sensory gym to help develop sensory systems. You should look for the same if you are considering installing one in your home.

Swings and Trampolines

Swings are one of the most effective tools for helping kids with vestibular issues. In a well-equipped sensory gym, you may find several different types of swings, from hammock-style swings to swinging platforms suspended securely from the ceiling. Swinging challenges the vestibular system to retain awareness of where the body is in space. For many kids, on the spectrum or not, the sensation of swinging is simply fun, pleasurable, and calming.

Mini trampolines with safety bars to hold give kids a chance to bounce and jump, building strength, coordination, and body awareness. Many sensory-seeking kids just need the movement to calm themselves. Jumping provides the sensory stimulation they seek.

Slides

Slides build gross motor skills and planning ability. You must know when to put your feet down to stop yourself at the bottom.

A child who has practiced on the slide in a sensory gym may be better prepared to approach a slide at a public park, which can require social skills. The urge to get on the slide may be confronted with the requirement of standing in line and learning to negotiate with other kids.

Rock Walls

Kids can traverse climbing walls horizontally or vertically. Climbing the wall requires motor planning: where do I put my foot next? How can I use my hands and arm strength to hang on as I move from one foothold to the next? Moving up or across a climbing wall forces a child to use both sides of their body, working together to complete the task of moving from one point to the next on the wall.

Seclusion Area

Kids on the spectrum need a quiet space to take a break and get away from excess sensory stimulation. A key feature of every sensory gym is a seclusion area where kids who’ve had enough for a while can calm themselves and regroup.

A seclusion area should have comfortable cushions or beanbag chairs to relax on, soft lighting in gentle colors like blues and dark pinks, and gentle, ambient sounds like recordings of rain or “brain wave” sleep music.

Many kids find solace in bubble tubes or walls, lava lamps, or moving sand pictures or hourglasses they can invert and watch as the sand shifts or falls.

Crash Pads

Unfortunately, many sensory-seeking kids are labeled as disruptive. They are regarded as having behavioral problems instead of being recognized as needing extra sensory stimulation. Crash pads give these kids a safe way to land when they have the urge to crash into something. They build body awareness as kids begin to realize it isn’t necessary to fling themselves full force into objects (or people) to get the physical sensation they need to be confident of where their body is in space.

Crash pads are also just fun and give children a safe way to burn off excess energy. Kids will learn to recognize that it isn’t safe to crash into something that isn’t padded, while it’s OK to land on a big, thick cushion that provides protection from injury.

Other Types of Sensory Gym Equipment

While all sensory gyms should have equipment that helps develop the vestibular and proprioceptive systems, that equipment can come in many different forms . You may find monkey bars, ball pits, and zip lines in an occupational therapy sensory gym. You may find light shields that soften the bright, harsh glow of overhead lighting or soundproofing that muffles intrusions from traffic noise.

Sensory gyms may include supplies and equipment intended to stimulate or acclimate a child’s reactions to sounds, lights, tastes, and textures. Crunchy or creamy snacks, music and musical instruments, sand tables, or light toys can also help kids manage their reactions to sensory stimuli.

Occupational therapists are your best source of recommendations that specifically address your child’s unique needs. You can support their work at home by incorporating some features of the professional sensory gym into a sensory space in a corner, a spare room, or the basement of your house .

While children don’t “grow out” of autism, they can learn how to cope with a world that is insensitive or oblivious to their needs. Sensory gyms with the proper equipment can help.

Royalty Sensory Gyms is your home for a variety of occupational therapy sensory gym equipment. Let us build you the perfect space where your patient or child can get the safe play space they deserve. Contact us today for a free consultation and to speak with one of our expert staff members.

Common Misconceptions About Sensory Gyms Explained

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 18:57:51 GMT

Sensory gyms help children with sensory processing issues build skills. However, some people still believe certain myths about these crucial gyms. Read on to explore some of the most common misconceptions about sensory gyms.

What Is a Sensory Gym?

Most often used by occupational therapists to help children with sensory issues, sensory gyms are now turning up in schools, hotels, car dealership waiting rooms, and hospitals. These specially designed spaces contain equipment that can help build balance, body awareness, motor, communication, and social skills.

Sensory gyms provide much-needed sensory breaks for hypersensitive people or sensory stimulation for people who need stronger sensory inputs to calm themselves or understand their bodies and environments. Despite the many benefits of these setups, there are some misconceptions about sensory gyms. Read on to explore a few that we’d like to dispel.

Myth One: Sensory Gyms Only Benefit Those With Autism

Many people diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have sensory issues. However, non-autistic people may also have sensory processing trouble. Sensory integration disorder (SID) can manifest in non-autistic people as clumsiness, bumping into things, aversion to certain clothing or food textures, or extreme reactions to loud sounds or bright lights.

Sensory gyms address spatial awareness and balance (the vestibular sense) and body awareness and force (proprioception) while building physical strength, motor skills, and planning abilities.

This equipment also benefits people without special needs. Sensory gyms are attractive environments to encourage exercise. They help sharpen sensory perception and processing skills for everyone.

Myth Two: Sensory Gyms Are Only for Toddlers and Pre-School Children

Adults with disabilities benefit from sensory gyms, and more organizations are constructing them to accommodate adult bodies. Teens and young adults with disabilities can continue to hone sensory and social skills while having fun in a sensory gym environment.

Myth Three: Only Therapists Use Sensory Gyms

More people and institutions have begun to recognize the benefits of sensory gyms. Parents install indoor sensory play equipment in their basements or spare rooms to reinforce therapy for their kids. Hotels, hospitals, and schools find these spaces help their more sensitive guests and patients.

Don’t let misconceptions about sensory gyms keep you from offering yourself or your children the benefits of sensory exercise and play. Contact Royalty Sensory Gyms for more information on how we can design a sensory gym environment for your home, school, or business.

The Benefits of Creating a Sensory Playroom at Home

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 18:53:41 GMT

Children with sensory issues make it clear at an early age that there are things about their world that affect them far more dramatically than other kids. Loud noises, bright lights, crowds, and seams or tags on clothing can cause distress.

Environments that seem benign to most kids can be overwhelming to children on the autism spectrum or those who have separate sensory processing or sensory integration issues. Speech and occupational therapies can help kids whose brains process sensory inputs in a different way. But parents can also fashion spaces at home that help kids with these differences learn how to cope. Consider the benefits of creating a sensory playroom at home.

What Is a Sensory Playroom?

A sensory playroom is a dedicated space that contains equipment that helps a person regulate their extreme reactions to sensory stimuli. It also provides a retreat when a person with sensory issues feels a meltdown coming on from overstimulation.

Sensory rooms are also great for kids who need more, not less, sensory input. Children who hug too tightly, deliberately crash into things, or engage in dangerous behaviors like jumping from heights may be "sensory-seeking” types who need stronger sensory inputs to regulate their physical and emotional selves.

You can even customize a sensory playroom to help with specific concerns. Sensory gym equipment can include swings, monkey bars, slides, beanbag chairs, “crash-pad” cushions, ride-on bouncing balls, climbing walls, and more. Occupational therapists use these types of equipment to help children with sensory integration issues.

A Safe Space

One of the biggest sensory gym benefits at home is that it offers children a safe place to retreat, play, and use equipment that helps them understand where their bodies are relative to other objects. It also helps them improve balance and understand different levels of force and pressure. Because it is at home, children with sensory issues know they’re in a supportive environment in which people won’t judge them for needing to retreat, take a break, and maybe hop on a swing for a while.

Home sensory gyms don’t have to be large or expensive. You can put up a play tent and stock it with weighted blankets, a streaming device for soothing “sleep” or “brain wave” music, or bubble tubes for your child to stare at. If you’ve got a sensory seeker on your hands, a mini trampoline or swing in the basement or a corner of the family room padded with mats might work.

Reinforce Therapy Between Sessions

Another benefit of a home sensory gym is that it allows your child to show you the types of activities and movements they work on with their therapist. Communication with the therapist is important, as you can share observations and get the therapist’s input on what your child’s sensory-avoiding or sensory-seeking behaviors may mean. Together, you can ensure your child has access to play environments that help prepare them for a noisy, bright, and scratchy real world.

Royalty Sensory Gyms is your home for a variety of at-home sensory gym equipment . We’ll work with you to create a space where your child can feel safe and secure, no matter the circumstances. To learn more about the benefits of a sensory gym, give us a call today !

Sensory Success For a Firm Foundation

john.thuline@logicalposition.com (Site Administrator) — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 17:23:54 GMT

The " sensory gym " has developed a high demand from therapists due to the critical role it plays in their treatment plans, allowing them to do a range of therapeutic exercises throughout their play space. Sensory gyms help to foster independence, reduce social stress, and acclimate your child to new stimuli safely. Royalty Sensory Gyms understands that having a variety of sensory equipment in your play space can get overwhelming having to maneuver around it all and not knowing where to store everything. Our state-of-the-art custom therapeutic sensory gyms are designed to utilize every inch of floor space to the best of its ability, while allowing therapists to expand and amplify their therapeutic exercises with the children.Below I’ve listed the best pieces of equipment that Royalty Sensory Gyms uses for their custom-built sensory gyms and the benefits that each piece of equipment has to offer!

Swings:

Vestibular Sense - A developed vestibular system allows us to navigate our environment with confidence because our brain knows exactly where the body is in relation to other objects. Swinging allows a child to put their body in a position that forces the vestibular system to acknowledge the different sensations being processed like the wind against their face and butterflies in their stomach.
Spatial Awareness - When your child sits in the therapy swing, the fabric puts pressure on their sensory receptors. This proprioceptive input is called deep pressure therapy. This input benefits your child by allowing them to feel their body’s movements. They can sense when their arm is outstretched or when their knee is bent. This sensory information gives your child a better understanding of their body’s location.
Strengthens Muscles - Swinging benefits muscle tone as different swinging positions can be used to target different muscle groups. To strengthen their head and neck muscles, have your child swing on their stomach. If your child suffers from weak core muscles, try rolling up the fabric like a normal swing. The lack of back support will strengthen abdominal muscles and improve posture.

Slides:

Promotes Balance and Coordination - As a child pushes themselves down the slide, they are building valuable balance and coordination skills. Sliding helps the child to develop spatial awareness, as they must judge when it’s a good time to slide and when to put their feet down once they reach the bottom of the slide.
Gross motor skills - Slides are a great motor activity because they require a child to climb the stairs of the slide, balance on one foot, and shift their weight during stair climbing.
Encourages Positive Social Skill Development - Everyone always wants to use the slide! At a busy playground, the slide is always the main focus for most children. When kids are playing together, the slide is a great way to help children learn important social skills like cooperative play, sharing, taking turns, and physical abilities. These skills will have a lasting impact on their social interactions as they continue to develop!

Monkey Bars:

As a child climbs up our ladder and across the monkey bars, they’re enhancing their body’s awareness, fine motor planning, bilateral coordination, core strength, and hand strength. A child may be guided by a therapist at first while climbing on the monkey bars but over time they’ll gain a sense of confidence and independency allowing them to climb freely without any help.

Rock Walls:

Problem Solving - As a child navigates their way from one side of the rock wall to the other, they feel a sense of accomplishment. Their brain is problem solving as they figure out which way is easiest for them to get across the rock wall.
Physical strength - Kids develop hand and finger strength as they grasp and hang onto holds of all different shapes and sizes. As they maneuver their way across the rock wall this requires a great deal of core, leg, and arm strength too as they try to keep their balance.
Bilateral Coordination - When kids are climbing, they use both sides of their body together, usually in an alternating pattern. They also learn how to differentiate between the movements on either side of their bodies. They stabilize themselves with one foot/hand while motor planning how to grasp onto and step on the next rock with their foot/hand.

Ball Pits:

Improve Motor Skills - When sitting in a pool of balls, young kids can pick up and handle the balls to sharpen their fine motor skills which won’t yet be developed. Catching the balls in the ball pit for a toddler will be an effective test of their fine motor skills at work. When they toss the balls up or to a partner, they’re using gross motor skills as well.
Reduce Stress and Anxiety - The balls provide deep pressure therapy by massaging the entire body, providing buoyant support, giving the child a deep-pressure sensation, and encouraging relaxation.
Visual/Tactile Senses - The brightly colored balls inside a ball pit create a rainbow sea of fun and entice people of all ages into the therapy environment! The array of brightly colors targets the child’s visual sense and as they touch the balls, it helps to develop their tactile sense.

Seclusion Area:

Calming - Seclusion areas help a child to regulate their emotions when they’re experiencing sensory overload. These areas are often dimly lit with incandescent lighting or natural lighting.
Speech Therapy - Therapists can practice speech therapy with the child if a white board is attached in the seclusion area or they can read a book as another way to practice speech therapy!

Jump Deck:

Gross Motor Skills - Jumping from a jump deck into a ball pit, develops a child’s leg strength and balance. It requires coordination of upper and lower extremity movements as the child takes that leap.
Independence - Jump decks allow a child to conquer their fears in a safe environment. A therapist may need to assist the child their first few times leaping into the brightly colored ball pit but over time the child will gain confidence, eventually being able to do it without any assistance!

Ninja Ramp:

This piece of equipment is great for developing your gross motor skills, building strength in your upper/lower body. It also helps to develop grip strength along with their coordination as they pull themselves up the ninja ramp.

Zipline:

The zipline is a great way to build upper extremity strength, muscle endurance, enhance the ability to integrate and tolerate movement. This piece of equipment helps to build the child’s confidence and grip strength as they zip line from one end of our monkey bars into a ball pit on the other end.

Trampoline:

Gross Motor Skills - Bouncing on a trampoline creates a constantly shifting center of gravity, which kids must quickly respond to by adjusting their body’s position and bilateral movements. Coordination is developed through jumping, along with the strengthening of bones and joints.
Learning - Jumping allows a child to feel more relaxed and improves their concentration. The trampoline can be an effective and engaging tool for learning. Counting, jumping onto colored shapes, and following directions are just some of the ways a child can learn through play.
Strong Immune System - Bouncing on a trampoline is great for detoxifying the body and strengthening the immune system, as it stimulates internal organs and promotes lymphatic circulation. It pushes toxins out of cells and allows nutrients in.

These different types of sensory equipment allow therapists to amplify their treatment plans and be able to treat the whole child. Royalty Sensory Gyms is here to help you change the lives of kids/adults throughout the whole spectrum! These state-of-the-art sensory gyms not only have an everlasting impact on kids/adults but also on the therapists, making therapy FUN and easier for them!

Resource: Specialty. School. and Rock Climbing In Winston Salem- For Many Benefits! says: "The Benefits of Rock Climbing for Climbing for Children with Special Needs." Schoolyard Blog / Teacher Resources / School Specialty. 23 Aug. 2018

blog.schoolspecialty.com/benefite-rock-climbing-children-special-needs/.