Sensory Season Ep 7: Touch

Have you ever considered the complexity of a simple touch, or the challenges that a child might face when their tactile system is out of sync? In today’s episode we delve into the tactile system.  Everything from tactile discrimination, tactile defensiveness to hypo responsive to touch.  And as always we end with the practical strategies to support children who struggle with tactile processing, ensuring they can comfortably navigate their sensory world and engage in all occupations they want to. 

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DISCLAIMER:

While I will always make every effort to share correct information as at the date of the podcast, research is constantly happening and as a profession we learn more everyday. One therapist may have a different way of doing things to another, and every child’s needs are unique. By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others. Consult your child’s paediatrician or therapist for any recommendations for your child.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Bell's OT Corner and welcome to our final sensory system. We have made it, guys. We have done our proprioception, we have done vestibular, we have done interception, we have done sight and sound and we have done our proprioception, we have done vestibular, we have done interception, we have done sight and sound and we have done taste and smell. We've gotten there and we're up to our last one, which is our touch, our tactile system. This is the last system that we have, our last sensory system that we have, that our brain is processing all this information to help put together that bigger picture for our body. So, as always, we are going to talk through what the system is, what it looks like, what it controls, what it can look like if something is going wrong or there's some difficulty with this system and, as always, we'll finish up with those tips and tricks about things you can do at home and things you can do in the classroom to help some of the kitties that you might notice have a little bit of difficulty in this area. So, first off, what is the tactile system? Where are our receptors? Well, you may guess our receptors for our tactile system are in our skin, because it's all about touch. Where am I being touched? How hard am I being touched? What does this touch feel like? It's all about what is coming into contact with my skin and what does that mean? Now, our skin is our largest organ we have in the body. So if you think, if you've got receptors all over your body, some areas will have more receptors than others and be more sensitive, like our hands and the soles of our feet and around our mouth those areas where we're going to get a lot of information. So it needs to be a little bit more sensitive to be able to help us differentiate between what might be touching our skin, but it's all over our body, it's everywhere. Might be touching our skin, but it's all over our body, it's everywhere. And so you can imagine the amount of information that is constantly coming up my central nervous system, up to my brain, about what I am feeling, what I am touching, and all of this extra information. For example, right now I'm sitting on a chair, and so my body is feeling that chair, all against my back, all down to my bottom, all from my bottom to the backs of my knees. I'm also wearing clothes, and so my body is feeling that I'm sitting with my floor on some carpet and I don't have any shoes on, and so my feet can feel the carpet and feel all the bumps and intricacies in the carpet. I have a necklace on that. I can feel around my neck. I have my hair pulled up, and so I can feel around my neck. I have my hair pulled up, and so I can feel that pulling against my skin. And that's before I even do anything, before I interact with anything, I have all of these different touches and sensations that are touching against my skin all the time.

Speaker 1 3:00

So you can imagine there's a lot of thinking that goes on within this system, and our touch system can detect different sorts of stimuli. So it might detect pain, it might detect temperature Now different to interception, which is like my internal temperature. But when we're talking about touch temperature, we're talking about the temperature of something. So if I open the fridge and I take something out, it's a little bit cold. Or if I just make myself a cup of tea and I hold that cup, it's nice and warm.

Speaker 1 3:35

Knowing that touch of something external to myself, our tactile system can help us differentiate between light touch and deep pressure, and so when something is just tickling on the top of my skin and it feels very, very light, we call that light touch and deep pressure. As we know, is that stronger input when we're getting all the way through those muscles and those joints, like what we talked about back in our proprioceptive episode? If you haven't had a listen, go back and have a listen to that one. A lot of our tactile system comes from knowing what different deformation of our skin feels like, and so if something's pushing against my skin just a little bit it's having that stretch, having that pull on my skin I can feel that joint movement and therefore my brain can decode all of that information for what that means practically. It can feel different pressures and it can feel vibrations, and so there's lots of different characteristics to touch which then become important for well, okay, what? What does that mean? What does that vibrating toothbrush mean? Is that safe? Is it not safe?

Speaker 1 4:41

And coming into this safe and not safe side of it, our tactile system is incredibly protective and, as we talked about way back in our what is sensory processing episode, which feels like a lifetime ago now, in that episode we touched on this idea that our information comes up our sensual nervous system to our brain and either it goes on that low road where it's protective and this is a threat to me and I need a response right now or we can think about it a little bit more and make that slightly more considered action plan about what I am going to do. Is this information important, not important? Can I ignore it and that sort of real basis of protecting myself and protecting my body and therefore I need an immediate response? Or, yep, I can understand this information. I can put it together with all the other information from all my other sensory systems to make a slightly more considered plan. So if you haven't had a listen to that one, I do recommend going back and having a listen, just because it will help give a bit more of a framework in terms of the protective side within our tactile system.

Speaker 1 5:52

And when I say it has a protective function, this is where it's protecting us from harmful stimuli. So something is too hot and we take our hand away, something feels painful, is too sharp, and I will take my body away and I will move away from that stimuli. If you're cleaning up from your kiddos and you don't see a bit of lego on the floor and you step on that piece of lego, your brain is going to know about it very, very quickly and, without even thinking about it, your brain will tell you to lift that foot and move away from it. It's that automatic protective instinct that comes into play. So the other thing to think about within our tactile system is, unlike all of our other systems, where there are ways to block that input. For example, we can put on ear defenders or headphones, we can close our eyes to block our visual system. We can just not eat things, to not engage with our taste system, or we can have periods of the day we don't eat things.

Speaker 1 6:51

Our tactile system is different, because we can't just take our skin off, we can't just remove it in some way. It's always there and so it can be a really overpowering sense for a lot of kids, because there's not a definite way to get a clear bit of respite from the system. So this is when we'll talk a little bit more in detail about how we can help these kiddies manage. But just keep it in the back of your mind that this is not one that is as easy to have a break from and that we can remove ourselves from, and that our brain is always having to process it on some level. So, as always, we have our hyper-responsive and our hypo-responsive. When we look at these kidneys, and as I'm sure you know now, our hyper-responsive kids are the kids that react really readily and have big responses to what might be perceived by somebody else as a smaller amount of input. Our hypo responsive are those kids that either seek it out or we need to help them get a lot of this input so that their brain can register it.

Speaker 1 8:00

Our tactile system also has another one, and this is called our tactile discrimination, and our tactile discrimination is all about knowing what something is and knowing what something feels like without necessarily having to look at it, at it, and it is linked to our memory and linked to our visual system. So think about if you have to rummage in your bag and you're trying to find your keys, but you just stuck your hand in your bag, you're not looking at it, you haven't opened up your bag yet. You stuck your hand in and you're rummaging around and you feel something that's smooth on one side and it's got some ridges on the other side and it's about a rectangle. And nope, that's my phone. I don't need that. And then I've got a long, thin cylindrical object. Oh no, that's a pencil, don't need that. Rummaging around some more, then I found something that's round and flat on both sides nope, that's a coin, don't need that.

Speaker 1 9:01

And so your brain picks up what the different shapes are based on the shape, the texture and can put all of that information together to figure out what that object might be and therefore what you are or aren't looking for. So this requires the thinking part of our brain, as you can imagine, to just link in with all of our other inputs around what might be happening, what might that look like, what might that feel like? Therefore, what is it, without actually having to combine our vision with it? It also links in with our proprioceptive system a little bit in terms of how hard we want to touch something. And so if you think about, if someone asks you, someone pulls a joke and they say, oh, I've got something in this bag, like you, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta feel it it's so cool, automatically you're on edge because you can't see what this thing is.

Speaker 1 10:01

And someone's telling you to put your hand into a bag and you have no idea what's in is and someone's telling you to put your hand into a bag and you have no idea what's in there, and so, naturally, what you're going to do, and what your brain is going to tell you to do, is be really slow, be really I don't, and you might have some of those like slightly jerky movements as you're trying to convince your hand to go into the bag. But you're going to start off with being really gentle and then, if you reach in and you feel something that's a bit softer, well you're going to be extra gentle because you might not want to hurt or break it. It's the idea that we know how much to grade our strength in that proprioceptive side just by what it feels like. If I'm picking up an empty water bottle, I know if I squeeze it really hard, it's going to compress in my hand, and I can know that just from touching it, without actually having to look at it, giving it a bit of a squeeze and going that's an empty water bottle. So you can see how there's a fair bit of thinking involved within this tactile discrimination side and how it does link in with some of our other systems as well.

Speaker 1 11:05

And so what might it look like when we have some difficulties. Well, this is when a child might be unaware of when they're being touched, where they're being touched or why they're being touched. They might have difficulty describing how something feels. They might be unable to find things just by using their touch. And if you think in terms of dressing, we do things like this all the time when we do our buttons, we don't look at them and so buttons might be tricky. If we tell someone to tuck in their shirt, they might not feel all the way around. They might look down and just tuck in a tuck in their shirt. They might not feel all the way around. They might look down and just tuck in a bit in front where they can see and they reach and they go. Yep, that feels the same at the back, because I can't differentiate between the feeling of my shorts and the feeling of my shirt, and so we can see these difficulties with kids that are able, like figuring out what that touch might mean and what that touch actually feels like. How can I describe that touch? Because the more that I can describe that touch, the more that I can then start to think about what different touches and what different touch might feel like. So what can we do to help these kitties.

Speaker 1 12:21

Well, this is where we can play games where we explicitly talk about tactile defensiveness, discrimination, sorry, tactile discrimination, or, in layman's terms, we actively talk about how things feel. So we might play a find it game, and so we might have four objects. Or, if your shop finds it really tricky, we might start with two objects, and first we might put them out on the table, and one might be a little lego man and the other might be an exercise, squishy, stress ball, sensory ball, and so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to look at them and we're going to say, oh, this one's round, this one's smaller, this one's softer, this one's harder, this one has like a round head and some little legs, and I can see it's got two arms. This one is round and it's got some bumps on it. It's a little bit soft. Then we're going to pick it up and we're going to see if that matches what we were expecting. So we've queued up our tactile system through using our visual system and we've gotten it ready for what it's going to feel, and then we felt it. Then what we're going to do is we're going to find them, so we're going to hide them in a pillowcase, in a bag, under something, and the game is to try and reach in a find the toys first, so see if you can differentiate between the feel of the bag and the feel of the toys and then say, okay, I want you to see, can you find the ball? And you reach in together and you move it around and you can talk about what you're feeling. Oh no, I'm feeling the same fabric. I think that's still the bag and oh, I felt something. I'm not sure what it is. Oh, it's a little bit hard, it's a little bit smooth. So you can start to talk about what you feel, to help your child start to build their understanding of what they are feeling as well. And so then over time we can build this up and we can have more and more different objects in that bag. We can also just build in generally talking about how things feel when we do different activities at home. So maybe when it's bath time and you can talk about how the soap feels or, if you're doing some cooking together, how all the different ingredients might feel.

Speaker 1 14:28

Building in this additional language can start to help kids learn how to differentiate between different touch. We also might play the blindfold game, where you can sit there and one of you can either close your eyes or put a little blindfold on and the other person is going to touch them somewhere on their body, and it might be on the shoulder, it might be on the leg, it might be on the back, it might be on the cheek, and so we start to touch these different points and the other person has to guess how they're being touched. You can also build this up by going am I touching really gently or am I touching nice and strong? And so they have to start differentiating that different pressure within touch as well. And these are just some fun little games that you might want to play with your child just to help them build up some of these skills. But if you do have concerns about how your child is processing this information, I do recommend you reach out to an occupational therapist, who can provide some more child specific examples as well.

Speaker 1 15:26

Okay, so that is the slightly different one within our tactile system being our tactile discrimination. And then we move into our hyper and our hyper responsive, and we're going to start with a hyper responsive today, and this commonly refers, commonly has another name, which blows me away because it's one of our many, many systems. But for whatever reason, this particular system in just hyperresponsive got its own name and you may have heard it referred to as tactile defensiveness. So those children that are defensive against touch and really don't like it. So they are very, very responsive to smaller amounts of stimuli or something that we may not perceive. They could perceive very strongly and, in fact, may perceive it as painful.

Speaker 1 16:21

So the one really important thing to know here is, within our tactile system and within a hyper responsive tactile system, these children may experience things as painful that you or I may not experience as painful, and it's really important to be open and listen to what your child is telling you. If they're saying, oh, that hurts and you've gone, oh, but I've just touched you really lightly, instead of saying, oh, that doesn't hurt, what are you talking about? Actually saying, oh, really does it? Let's explore that a little bit together. You show me what hurt, and so they can then have control over that input and really honouring how their brain is processing this information at that moment in time and validating that. That's okay. And so, if they are perceiving some of these things as painful, really honoring that and then helping them build in some of these alternative strategies, instead of just telling them that what they have felt and what they have physically experienced is not right, because it's their experiences and their body.

Speaker 1 17:39

So what might these kids look like when we see them? Well, they might be kitties that refuse to wear certain clothes. They might be kitties that don't like getting anything messy Like, particularly if they get a little bit of mess on their hands or some mess on their feet. They want it cleaned right away, and they might really fixate on that and go I need to clean my hands, I need to clean my hands. Or they might get really upset really quickly and start crying and you can't quite figure out why that's crying started and then you wipe their hands and they start feeling a bit better. These may be kitties that don't like touching different food, and so maybe they're really really, really good at eating with their cutlery. You notice they never actually touch their food with their hands, or it might then feed into being a little bit more of a picky eater.

Speaker 1 18:29

These are kids that, functionally, in terms of some of those occupations we might see, these kids refuse to engage in self-care tasks Things like brushing their teeth, where you might get a little bit of toothpaste that drips out of my mouth or onto my fingers, things like having to wipe my bottom after using the toilet and things like maybe washing my face or washing my body in the shower. It's just too much. It's too much information to process and so we see them refuse the entire occupation and you might look at it and go well, you know, we just have to do it and it might be a struggle every day to try and get through bath time, to try and get those teeth brushed. But if we can break it down to the why and think that, oh, it might be something tactile going on here, we can break it down into the why and think that, oh, it might be something tactile going on here, we can change how we approach the occupation, put those different supports in place to make it a little bit easier for yourself and also for your child as you're navigating through. These daily tasks is hyper responsive, might also be kitties that have difficulties with cutting their nails or with going and getting their hair cuts. These are really highly sensory activities, high input sensory activities, particularly for our tactile system.

Speaker 1 19:46

If you think about cutting your nails, there's the pressure that you have to feel. There's the light touch at the same time, if the nail clippers touch a little bit of your skin, and particularly if you let someone else do it. I don't have control over that sensation, so I don't know when it's going to happen and when it's going to change and when it's going to stop, and so I'm slightly more on edge. Think back to if someone asked you to put your hand into a box and you don't know what's in that box. Automatically you're slightly more on edge because you don't have control and you don't know what to get yourself ready for. The same thing can be applied to these situations where it's going to be a really highly tactile input activity, a really high tactile input activity, and I don't know the parameters of this activity, and so I can't get my body ready for what to expect.

Speaker 1 20:35

Same with haircuts I'm going to have to feel someone pulling on my hair and twisting my hair and putting things in my hair and moving my head Before we get to the other components of haircuts, which have noise from clippers and cutters and everything else. If we just think about the tactile side of it, my hair gets wet, my hair gets washed with different things that I'm not used to feeling. I then have to sit in a chair and tolerate sitting in a chair. Something puts something tight around my neck yes, with the best intentions, to make sure the hair doesn't go everywhere, but I've now got something around my neck and then someone's pulling on my hair. They're brushing my hair. If there's knots in my hair, they're pulling against those. They're setting blow dryers, they're putting hot air against my head. You can see how, when you break it down, there's actually a lot going on within that experience.

Speaker 1 21:24

And so for some of these kitties that are tactile defensive, they're just not going to want to do it and they'll refuse, or they may experience a meltdown or a sensory overload where they just can't engage with that activity anymore. Similarly, these kiddies with tactile defensiveness or hyper responsive, we might see them as kids that hate washing their hair and hate brushing their hair. And it can be a battle when you have to wash their hair or when you know you need to brush their hair and so you don't brush their hair and then they get knots and they're brushing their hair is 10 times harder and it can become a little bit of a vicious cycle with the hair. But you know that that sensory experience is really really challenging for them. So what can we do to help this kitty?

Speaker 1 22:36

Before we get into what we can do to help this kid, the one other thing I'm going to say is, within a hyper responsive, you might find, particularly in new or busy places, that this child is always on edge and they're hyper alert because they're getting themselves ready for all of that unexpected touch. So in school, if you're thinking about moving between classrooms or when everyone goes out to recess or lunch, those transition times you might see this kid and physically you might see them tense up a little bit or you might see them move themselves away. Or maybe they're getting really distressed around this time and you're not sure why. For our tactile, defensive kitties, on these times when it's really busy and there's more unpredictability, you will see them being a little bit more on edge because they're trying to get themselves ready for what the sensation is going to be, but they don't know what it's going to be because they can't control others. Is someone going to knock into me? Maybe someone's just going to brush past me? Maybe there's someone behind me that I can't see and all of a sudden they've touched my back and I wasn't expecting that, and my brain has perceived that as painful input and I haven't been able to protect or get myself ready for it, and so it's something to think about.

Speaker 1 23:31

In the background with some of these hyper responsive kitties is, if you see them withdrawing from certain activities or you see them really struggling in times that are really busy, we might think about putting some different supports in place to be able to help them manage through these times. Now what could those supports look like and the what can we do to help these kitties? So we can think about this in two ways. We can look at three ways. We can look at modifying the task. So this could be where we pick sensory friendly clothes, clothes that don't have seams, that don't have labels, or you pick the clothes and if it's just the labels that bother your child, just cut them out. They're not that important. I promise you it's much easier if we can make the clothes comfortable for the child instead of having to fight to wear different clothes or take your child shopping with you and you can walk around and say, well, do you like the feel of this? What about this one? And they can start to tell you and vocalize what they do like the feel of and what they don't like the feel of.

Speaker 1 24:35

We can look at modifying the task in terms of, if your child doesn't like getting messy, but they're doing lots of messy play things at preschool or in kindergarten or nursery, well then maybe we use q-tips, so instead of touching everything with my fingers, I can use a q-tip to do some painting. Or I can wear gloves so that if everyone's engaging in the sensory tray or the messy tray, I can wear gloves so that my gloves get dirty and then I can take them off. Or if that's not an option, maybe I have a towel that I know is right next to me and so, as if my hands get dirty, I can wipe them, and then I can touch a little bit and then I can wipe them, and so I have that safety net set up within that activity we can also then think about so that's when we can look at modifying the task we can also look about modifying the environment. So if you think back to that guinea that has difficulties managing and we know that they're going to be on edge and we know that they're going to be hyper aware well, okay, in the classroom. Maybe we place them on the edge of the desk so that they've only got one person to their right and as a teacher, you might be really strategic and pick your child that might be a little bit more settled when they're seating, instead of a child that might be slightly more fidgety and seeking out some of that more movement, because there's just less chances of the child that we know might have some tactile difficulties being touched and being nudged. It might be that this child gets let out either a couple minutes before or you give them a job when you say everyone off you go. Oh, can you just go and you know, off you go to recess and hang on. Can you just go and help me and we're just going to tidy up these two bits in the room and so you can let the mass of children leave and then he can come and join, or he or she can come and join at the end when there's not as much movement going on and as much unpredictable touch. And it's all well and good to look at how we can make some of these adaptations to the environment and make some of these adaptations to the task.

Speaker 1 26:38

The other thing that's really, really good is changing how we can interact as well, and so looking at making sure we're going to tell the person when we're going to touch them and what that touch is going to feel like and how long it's going to go for, so making the experience as predictable as possible. So, instead of the child having to sit there on edge and be like, oh, I don't know what's coming, I don't know what's going to happen, we might, for example, when brushing hair, say, okay, we are going to do three brushes today, and if it gets too hard you are going to tap the table and I will stop. So they have an out. And then you start and you go one, two and three little brushes and then you might talk and say, wow, you did such a good job. How are you feeling? Is your body feeling okay, linking in a little bit of that interoceptive side, and so then can we go again? Or have we finished?

Speaker 1 27:34

And we're only doing three brushes today, and so all of a sudden, that task that has so much unpredictability in it. I know what's happening, I know what to get my body ready for and I'm ready for this sensation, additionally, allowing the child or the person control over the tactile experience. So, would you like to brush your own hair? Would you like to brush your own teeth? So you know what it's going to feel like.

Speaker 1 28:03

Or when we look at bits of dressing instead of mum or dad pulling it on really fast. Do you want to do it? Because it can feel funny coming over your head, so do you want to pull it over your head and then I can help with the other bits? Or want to do it because it can feel funny coming over your head, so do you want to pull it over your head and then I can help with the other bits? Or should we do it together and so we break down some of those difficulties? Within those areas, we can also look at building in bits of proprioceptive input just before we do it, of proprioceptive input just before we do it.

Speaker 1 28:38

And so if we know that getting our top on is going to be really, really tricky and that the child is really sensitive to that input, and we have the sensory-friendly clothing, we've got all the right bits and pieces, but we still know it's going to be challenging for this child's brain to process this input, well, well, let's do some heavy work first. Let's do some of those deep pressure activities to bring our sensory systems down, to help up and reorganize, to get us as focused and as organized and calm as we can before we then do the challenging activity. And we might focus these around the area of our body that's going to be engaging in the tricky tactile experience. So, for example, if I am about to put something over my head, I might do some head massage with a child and get that head ready, do some nice strong touch and this is dependent upon if your child likes that strong touch and then, once we have it, we go okay, are we ready? Is our brain already? Is our head already? One, two, three on it goes and see every time I'm cuing with when that sensation is going to come. You also might. Your child and your child might do this, naturally, but they also just might prefer to wear longer clothes because then they have a barrier between themselves, their skin and the world, and so if something touches their jacket or touches their long sleeve top or their long sleeve pants, well it can feel that first and it doesn't directly touch my skin, and so it gives me that extra little bit of protection.

Speaker 1 30:13

So these are some of the things that we can do to help those kids that are hyper responsive, or the other word is that tactile defensiveness. The big things I want you to kind of take away from this is thinking about those adaptations to the task, really looking at making it explicit and really clear about what the sensation is when the touch is coming and how long it's going to go for, and then thinking about how we might look at changing the environment in terms of things that we can do within the classroom to limit the amount of tactile experiences this child has to encounter so that their brain can still think about and focus on the learning that we want to do. And if you have set up a really great sensory play or sensory learning experience, that's fantastic and that will benefit lots and lots of kids in your class. But maybe just have a slightly less tactile heavy activity or a different, modified version of the task for those kids that, for them, all of that tactile experience is going to be really, really overwhelming, alrighty. So that's our tactile discrimination and our tactile defensiveness or our hyper responsive, and so the last bit we're going to talk about today is those hypo responsive.

Speaker 1 31:28

So these are the kids that need lots and lots and lots of input, and either they might seek it out themselves, and they might be constantly touching things and trying to feel different things, or we might need to build in more bits of tactile input into their day to help meet what their body and what their brain needs. And so what might these kids look like? These might be kids that, as I said before, constantly touching things. They might be kids that, as I said before, constantly touching things, they might be kids that hold people tightly and really want that strong push against other people so that they can then get that extra feedback back to themselves about oh, yep, okay, I can feel that and, yep, I can feel something, you know, pushing against my leg, and so maybe when I'm sitting in the class, I'm leaning against my friend and I'm enjoying that feeling of all that extra tactile input against my arm and my leg because I'm leaning against my friend, or maybe I'm leaning on the table.

Speaker 1 32:21

Sometimes these kids, we'll see, have a really high pain threshold, and so they might not notice if they get bumps or scratches or bruises on their arms, because their brain hasn't processed that particular piece of tactile information. Similarly, they might not notice if their hands or their skin get messy, or they might have been a bit of food from their breakfast on their face at dinner time. When you go, did you not feel that all day? And they look at you and go feel what? It's? Just my face, it feels fine.

Speaker 1 32:51

These might be the kids that you see that love, love, love, love, love, love, sensory play. And so you might pull out a bit of shaving cream and you know you were thinking, oh yeah, we'll put some shaving cream on the table and we'll draw some pretty pictures in it, fantastic. And then you look over and all of a sudden this particular kitty has it all up their arms and on their face and all over their hands, and maybe they're trying to put it on their friends as well, and they're really engaging and really love those high tactile sensory activities. These also might be the children. That is when they were younger, or they may still, do some poo smearing, and so when they get that, when they smear it on different surfaces or on themselves, these are one of the reasons that a child may be doing that as well. And so when they get that pill and they smear it on different surfaces or on themselves, these are one of the reasons that a child may be doing that as well.

Speaker 1 33:38

We also might see these children would chew lots of things, because, as we mentioned before, we do have different receptors within our mouth, and one of those is a tactile receptor, and so they might constantly be chewing on the corner of their shirt. They might be chewing different things. They might always have something in their mouth that they are chewing on. So what can we do to help these kitties? Well, number one we can provide alternatives. If the way they are seeking out and meeting their sensory needs is not a way that is going to be effective or not a way that is going to be appropriate or not a way that is going to be appropriate, for example, if they're engaging in poo spearing, we look at alternatives. What else can they engage with to meet this need? Maybe it is a fidget, maybe it's a bit of slime, because slime has a similar texture to some of that shaving cream and some of those things, and so maybe there's a bit of slime, because slime has a similar texture to some of that shaving cream and some of those things, and so maybe there's a bit of slime that they can play with in their hands, and maybe we let them play with this while they are focusing on a learning task or while they are focusing on doing something else. So one of my hands might be playing with the slime, but I'm still listening to the teacher, or I'm still doing my homework with my other hand and writing with my other hand, but I have this in one hand to help meet that need, because I need that extra bit of tactile input For children that we might see that chew a lot.

Speaker 1 35:00

We might look at chewlery or chewies and so giving them an alternative, or maybe, depending upon the age of the child, a little bit of chewing gum. Or maybe we might give them something really cold to drink that's going to be a different texture, or a bit of ice to chew on. So something again that is an alternative to chewing on their clothes, because then their clothes get really wet against their skin and their skin might get irritated. So we can look at building in these different alternatives. We might look at building in more sensory, some more tactile sensory activities, into their day, so things like Play-doh can be a great one. Things like having resistance bands across the bottom of their chair or at school, so they can get that tactile feedback if they push their feet against it. Or we might look at things like when I say fidgets, we might look at like physical fidgets that you can buy and spin, but also fidgets and different tactile sensations that they could fidget with. So different bits of fabric can equally be fidgets, so I might have something smooth that I can run between my fingers or something bumpy and scratchy that I can run between my fingers. I might have some slime, I might have some play-doh. It could be that we build in different sensory bins throughout the day. If you have a little Google of sensory trays and messy play activities, there are thousands upon thousands that come up and you could look through them with your child maybe, and see what they're interested in. Or you know your child really well and so you could pick some of those to do and have a time for messy play every day.

Speaker 1 36:32

When we think about some of these occupations, if we have a child that we know isn't going to notice when their face gets a little bit messy or they don't notice the feeling of their clothes, if their clothes are the wrong way around or they haven't quite done up all their buttons, we can build in other sensory systems to help, and what I mean by this is we might start using a mirror to help us check before. Mean by this is we might start using a mirror to help us check before we leave the house. Or, if I finished, I might build in a step into my dressing routine. But if I finish dressing, my last step is actually going to be go to a mirror and check. So I'm going to use my visual system to help me check. Yep, that's right. Yep, that's right. Yep, my face is clean. Okay, I'm good to go. And so looking at again how we can build in some of those adaptations to help your child be as independent as possible. So that is our last one, guys. That is our tactile system. All done, all of the tips and tricks.

Speaker 1 37:30

If you have any questions on it, as always, please send me a message. I'm always happy to have a chat, and that wraps up our sensory season all done. Oh, my goodness, I can't believe it. Time has absolutely flown and I've loved having you all on the journey with me. If you do have any further questions about our sensory system, I will be doing a second sensory system later, but in the meantime, please do send me your questions, because if I do get enough, I might do a sensory Q&A session. It might be mid next season, but we can definitely still look at doing one. So if you have any burning questions, please, please do send them through to me so that I can then answer them. But that's all for now. I hope you guys have a lovely, lovely week and I'll chat to you again soon, in two weeks, for our next season. All righty guys talk soon. Bye.