Sensory integration is the phrase explaining how your brain and body work together.
An example is the way a baby’s brain makes connections when learning to walk, it’s a complex process and involves 8 senses including the proprioceptive (body position), vestibular (balance) and tactile (touch) senses.
Your body and brain need to work together in complex ways to achieve all sorts of things you want to do in everyday life – for a child/young person: getting up and dressed, brushing teeth, making a snack, getting organised, concentrating at school, playing games, having fun with friends.
Some children and young people benefit from additional, specific support to improve their sensory integration. Improving sensory integration can benefit many activities in a person’s life.
What is sensory integration intervention?
Sensory integration intervention develops a person’s brain processing through the person’s moving their body in particular ways. This is because the person’s proprioceptive, vestibular, and tactile senses are being challenged to integrate by the activities and movements.
This intervention aims to motivate children and young people to take their ‘just right’ challenges in a safe, predictable environment. When a child or young person is motivated and involved in their challenges (e.g. holding onto a trapeze bar, and moving across to a swing without touching the floor), progress can be achieved towards life skill goals.
Each session is planned with your child’s specific needs and goals in mind after a careful and thorough assessment is completed and results studied.
Each session will be semi-structured by me. I will encourage your child or young person to achieve physical challenges using their own motivation in safe and controlled ways.
When sensory integration intervention is working well, the session will look like play because this is the ‘work’ of children.
These videos give you a flavour of what happens during a sensory integration intervention session. SI intervention at the SwingFun clinic is not exactly the same, but similar.
