What is It?

Sensory Integration

There are more than 5 senses…
Everyone knows about taste, smell, hearing, vision and touch… but did you know about the movement and body position senses? These senses are called the vestibular (balance) and kinesthetic (muscle and joint sense, sometimes referred to as proprioception).

Our senses working together…
Our body senses work together to enable us to understand what is going on around us, where our body is in relation to other objects in our environment, if there is potential danger around us, what we pay attention to and what we can safely ignore and if we need to do something with our body, like move or relax.

The process of our senses working together is called SENSORY INTEGRATION. Sensory integration provides an important foundation for more complex learning, development of skills and behaviour.

For most children, efficient sensory integration develops in the course of ordinary childhood activities, occurring automatically and without effort. Good quality movement and attention skills are two natural outcomes of the process.

Unfortunately for some of us (adults and children) our sensory integration is like a car that needs a tune up –sparks misfiring and not running well. When the process is disordered,
a number of problems in learning, development, or behaviour may become evident.

Jean Ayres, Occupational Therapist was one of the first professionals to identify and treat children with these difficulties. See links for further information.

Other occupational therapists since Ayers, have also developed specific intervention strategies to bassist children with sensory processing difficulties. At HoPALoNG our therapists are trained in the following intervention strategies:

Therapeutic Listening - Listening with the Whole Body

Therapeutic Listening is a modulated music CD program that targets the auditory neurological pathways which impacts on how we listen, overall physiology and behaviour to assist clients engage, interact and discriminate age appropriately to their environment. Listening is a neurophysiological response to sound and can be broken into several steps these include orienting to sound, locating sound, selecting sound, attending to sound, discriminating and interpreting sound.
(Clinical Concepts and Treatment Guidelines for Therapeutic Listening. Frick and Young 2009)

Wilbarger Deep Pressure and Propriciopective Technique and Oral Tactile Technique: Sensory Defensiveness Treatment Level 2

Techniques to recognise sensory defensive behaviours in and responses in clients and the significant impact this may have upon on the client and their family. Therapists then develop an individualised professional intervention treatment plan and a prescriptive “sensory diet” for home and school.
(Wilbarger Treatment Level II, Manual August 2009)

Astronaut Program

A Sound Activated Vestibular Visual Protocol:

‘A healthy vestibular system is important to all of use, not just astronauts. A bridge between sensory processing and movement control, the vestibular system plays a major role in everything we do including looking and listening. Astronaut training presents a long awaited protocol for improving function in the Vestibular-Auditory Visual Triad’.

(Mary J. Kawar, Shelia M. Frick, Ron Frick, Vital Links 2005)

Core stability

The child will be guided through graded strengthening activities together with tragetted music to build strength and endurance to their body’s core postural muscles.

MORE Intervention

Integrating the Mouth with Sensory and Postural Functions.

‘The suck/swallow/breath synchrony lies in the centre of this structure/function paradigm for many sensorimotor and developmental functions’.

(Oetter, Richter, Frick, PDP Press 1993)

ALERT Program

‘The alert program assists students in understanding the basic theory of sensory integration related to arousal states. The primary focus is to help children learn to monitor, maintain and change their level of alertness so that it is appropriate to a situation or task’.

(Williams, Shellenberger, 2008 Therapy Works)

Motor Skills

Our therapists are also trained to identify any underlying motor difficulties that your child may be having with both gross motor skills that is movement with their trunk, arms and legs or fine motor skills with their hands and fingers.

Specific difficulties may include Developmental Motor Dyspraxia or Developmental Coordination Disorder or generalised poor muscle strength, coordination difficulties, motor planning, manipulation skills and balance that is impacting on their ball skills, bike riding, endurance and participation in sports.

Handwriting

Many motor and cognitive skills are needed to produce legible handwriting. Possible underlying motor, sensory processing or learning difficulties may make handwriting difficulty for your child. These difficulties will be picked up during the assessment and recommendation made during the parent interview to assist your child.

Our school holiday Handwriting group program may assist child with minor handwriting difficulties.

Intervention (Occupational Therapy Intervention Program - OPIT)

Intervention is where the action starts as you and your child will be skilfully moved through enjoyable activities by your HoPALoNG occupational therapist through a process of discovering how their body works and what it can do. Their individualised intervention program may include general sensory integrative activities or one or more of the above intervention techniques as well as home and school program activities.

Individual intervention can also be boosted with School Holiday group programs.




About HoPALoNG History What happens at OT? Children enjoy OT! What is Occupational Therapy? What is OT? How can OT help my child? Does my child need OT? HoPALoNG Services Centre Based School/Preschool based Home based Group programs Equipment and Resources Training and In-Services What Is It? Sensory Integration Therapeutic Listening Motor Skills Handwriting Intervention - OPIT Education, Support and Links FAQs Brochures and Forms Team Profile Tahnee Westbury Michelle O'Sullivan Simone Vella Sentheesh Thiruchelvam Lauren Tucker Contact Us Home	What is It? Sensory Integration There are more than 5 senses… Everyone knows about taste, smell, hearing, vision and touch… but did you know about the movement and body position senses? These senses are called the vestibular (balance) and kinesthetic (muscle and joint sense, sometimes referred to as proprioception). Our senses working together… Our body senses work together to enable us to understand what is going on around us, where our body is in relation to other objects in our environment, if there is potential danger around us, what we pay attention to and what we can safely ignore and if we need to do something with our body, like move or relax. The process of our senses working together is called SENSORY INTEGRATION. Sensory integration provides an important foundation for more complex learning, development of skills and behaviour. For most children, efficient sensory integration develops in the course of ordinary childhood activities, occurring automatically and without effort. Good quality movement and attention skills are two natural outcomes of the process. Unfortunately for some of us (adults and children) our sensory integration is like a car that needs a tune up –sparks misfiring and not running well. When the process is disordered, a number of problems in learning, development, or behaviour may become evident. Jean Ayres, Occupational Therapist was one of the first professionals to identify and treat children with these difficulties. See links for further information. Other occupational therapists since Ayers, have also developed specific intervention strategies to bassist children with sensory processing difficulties. At HoPALoNG our therapists are trained in the following intervention strategies: Therapeutic Listening - Listening with the Whole Body Therapeutic Listening is a modulated music CD program that targets the auditory neurological pathways which impacts on how we listen, overall physiology and behaviour to assist clients engage, interact and discriminate age appropriately to their environment. Listening is a neurophysiological response to sound and can be broken into several steps these include orienting to sound, locating sound, selecting sound, attending to sound, discriminating and interpreting sound. (Clinical Concepts and Treatment Guidelines for Therapeutic Listening. Frick and Young 2009) Wilbarger Deep Pressure and Propriciopective Technique and Oral Tactile Technique: Sensory Defensiveness Treatment Level 2 Techniques to recognise sensory defensive behaviours in and responses in clients and the significant impact this may have upon on the client and their family. Therapists then develop an individualised professional intervention treatment plan and a prescriptive “sensory diet” for home and school. (Wilbarger Treatment Level II, Manual August 2009) Astronaut Program A Sound Activated Vestibular Visual Protocol: ‘A healthy vestibular system is important to all of use, not just astronauts. A bridge between sensory processing and movement control, the vestibular system plays a major role in everything we do including looking and listening. Astronaut training presents a long awaited protocol for improving function in the Vestibular-Auditory Visual Triad’. (Mary J. Kawar, Shelia M. Frick, Ron Frick, Vital Links 2005) Core stability The child will be guided through graded strengthening activities together with tragetted music to build strength and endurance to their body’s core postural muscles. MORE Intervention Integrating the Mouth with Sensory and Postural Functions. ‘The suck/swallow/breath synchrony lies in the centre of this structure/function paradigm for many sensorimotor and developmental functions’. (Oetter, Richter, Frick, PDP Press 1993) ALERT Program ‘The alert program assists students in understanding the basic theory of sensory integration related to arousal states. The primary focus is to help children learn to monitor, maintain and change their level of alertness so that it is appropriate to a situation or task’. (Williams, Shellenberger, 2008 Therapy Works) Motor Skills Our therapists are also trained to identify any underlying motor difficulties that your child may be having with both gross motor skills that is movement with their trunk, arms and legs or fine motor skills with their hands and fingers. Specific difficulties may include Developmental Motor Dyspraxia or Developmental Coordination Disorder or generalised poor muscle strength, coordination difficulties, motor planning, manipulation skills and balance that is impacting on their ball skills, bike riding, endurance and participation in sports. Handwriting Many motor and cognitive skills are needed to produce legible handwriting. Possible underlying motor, sensory processing or learning difficulties may make handwriting difficulty for your child. These difficulties will be picked up during the assessment and recommendation made during the parent interview to assist your child. Our school holiday Handwriting group program may assist child with minor handwriting difficulties. Intervention (Occupational Therapy Intervention Program - OPIT) Intervention is where the action starts as you and your child will be skilfully moved through enjoyable activities by your HoPALoNG occupational therapist through a process of discovering how their body works and what it can do. Their individualised intervention program may include general sensory integrative activities or one or more of the above intervention techniques as well as home and school program activities. Individual intervention can also be boosted with School Holiday group programs.

Call 1800 809 552 or help@hopalong.com.au - Site Map