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Course Descriptions and
Objectives
Catching Kids Before
they Fall:
Helping Young Children
with Sensory Processing Disorder
Session 1: 8:30 to
10:00 How Sensory Disorders
Affect Learning and Behavior
Some Children withdraw
from physical contact, refuse to participate in typical
classroom and playground activities that their peers
enjoy, or respond in an unusual way to ordinary
sensations to touch, movement, sights and sounds.
These children don't behave as we expect - not because
they won't but because they can't.
Inefficient processing of sensory messages that come
from one's body and surroundings often cause out-of-sync
behavior.
Participants who complete
this session will be able to:
*
Explain how sensory processing allows us to function as
active participants in everyday life.
*
Explain the three major categories of Sensory Processing
Disorder (SPD): sensory modulation disorder, sensory
discrimination disorder, and sensor- based motor
disorders including postural disorder and dyspraxia.
*Describe
how SPD interferes with a child's ability to function in
typical childhood occupations of learning, socializing,
communication, self-regulating, working, and playing.
10:00 to 10:30
break
Session 2: 10:30 to
12:00 Effects of Early
Intervention on Learning and Behavior
Early intervention is not
only for therapists to administer. Parents and
teachers also provide early intervention every day in
the natural settings of home and school - and often,
through trial and error, discover the "just-right"
experiences that help children with SPD. When
non-OT's can look at a child through a "sensory lens,"
they appreciate the brain-body connection and learn to
provide informal bur purposeful early intervention.
Participants who complete
this session will be able to:
*Recognize
characteristics of tactile, vestibular, proprioceptive,
visual and auditory dysfunction and how these
difficulties affect children's leaning and behavior
*
Observe children's self-therapy and how to redirect it,
if necessary - "Behavior means something!"
* Note
which sensory experiences help the child function
better, e.g., touch and movement activities, and which
backfire, e.g., noise, lack of sleep, scratchy clothes,
processed food, and other environmental stressors.
* Identify
ways to make accommodations in the home and school
environments, seek appropriate therapy, and increase
opportunities for heavy work activities and open-ended
play.
12:00 to 1:00 LUNCH
Session 3: 1:00 to
2:30 Identifying Sensory Issues and Related
Difficulties
Research, led by Lucy
Jane Milder, PhD, OTR, is revealing important
differences in the physiological make-up of children
with SPD. Dr. Miller's "Sensory Challenge
Protocol" will be discussed. Another occupational
therapist and researcher, Judith Reisman, has studies
the emotional impact that SPD has on children, Her
video about high school and college students, entitled,
"Learning about Learning Disabilities," which focuses on
SPD, will be shown.
Meanwhile, early
childhood education teachers and administrators are
increasingly aware that children with sensory deficits
have problems in the classroom and on the playground.
As teachers rather that OT's how can they begin to catch
these children before they fall? One means is
through Preschool Sensory Scan for Educators
(Preschool SENSE), a collaborative screening tool to
help OT's or other qualified professionals introduce
sensory processing to ECE teachers.
Participates who complete
this session will be able to:
*
Describe the Sensory Challenge Protocol research
project.
*
Explain how children's involuntary, neurological
reactions to sensory stimuli affect their learning and
behavioral responses.
*
Understand how OTs and other professionals can "get in
sync" with teachers to help them observe, appraise, and
address school children's responses to sensory - motor
experiences in the typical classroom.
2:30 to 3:00 BREAK
Session 4:
3:00 to 4:30 Fun and Functional Activities to
Improve Children's Learning Behavior
Parents, teachers, and
other professionals can add variety to the sensory
experiences of the children they care for with "SAFE"
(Sensory-motor, Appropriate, Fun, and Easy) activities.
These activities help kids get in sync by emphasizing
social interaction, heavy work, messy and not-so-messy
play, body awareness, balance, rhythm and timing,
visual-spatial relationships, auditory-language
processing, ear-body perception, motor planning's,
crossing the midline, oral-motor skills, and claming
down.
Participants who complete
this session will be able to:
*
Explain how movement and touch experiences are essential
ingredients in every child's daily sensory diet -
"movement is learning"
*
Identify SAFE activities, specifically designed to
engage various sensory systems and thereby improve
learning and regulate behavior.
*
Describe activities to take back to the classroom, home,
or clinic to use with all children, with or without SPD.
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