Our children constantly interact with new stimuli as they learn and explore the world around them. If your child is experiencing difficulties understanding all this sensory information it can lead to social, educational, and other developmental challenges. At Handprints Therapies, we address sensory processing and work on improving self-regulation, self-esteem, social participation, and sensory-motor skills through fun and motivational activities. We use data-driven, scientifically-proven strategies designed around your child’s unique challenges.
What is Sensory Integration
Sensory integration involves how your child is experiencing, interpreting, and reacting to the information from their body and their surroundings including
Sensory processing disorder (SPD) is a condition that affects how your child’s brain processes sensory information or stimuli. Some children have difficulty processing a single sense, while others have problems interpreting inputs from multiple sensory systems at once. This can affect how your child goes about their daily life leading to difficulties with learning, eating, motor control, socializing, and more.
Signs of Sensory Integration Dysfunction
Some children with SPD may overreact to stimuli while others may underreact. While no two children are the same, there are a few common signs of sensory processing dysfunction including:
- Overly or Under-Reactive to Touch, Movement, Sights, and/or Sounds
- Gagging When Eating Certain Food Textures
- Inability to Sit Still
- A Lack of Self-Control
- Difficulty Controlling Emotions
- Difficulty Making Friends
- Easily Distracted
- Clumsiness & Poor Motor Skills
- Speech and Language Delays
- Difficulty with Eye-Hand Coordination
- Behavior Challenges
- Thinks Lights Are Too Bright
- Says Sounds Are Too Loud
- Will Only Wear Certain Pieces of Clothing
- Sleep Problems
- Delays or Difficulty Learning
While a child that displays one or more of these symptoms may not have a sensory processing disorder, sensory processing therapy may be beneficial to their quality of life.
Handprint Therapies Sensory Processing Therapy
Every child begins their journey at Handprints Therapies with a thorough evaluation by one of our highly-trained professionals. Our Denver occupational therapists complete their evaluations for SPD through both standardized testing and structured observation which assesses your child’s hypersensitivity and/or hyposensitivity to stimuli including
- Reaction to Sensory Stimulation
- Eye Movement
Once our therapists understand what challenges your child is facing we can then design a personalized sensory processing therapy program tailored to their unique needs.
Sensory Integration Therapy
Ultimately, the goal of our sensory integration therapy programs is to increase your child’s threshold for tolerating sensory-rich environments, make their environmental transitions less alarming, and reinforce positive behaviors. While each sensory integration therapy program is customized around your child’s specific challenges, our team is able to pull from a network of scientifically-proven techniques.
We help guide your child through play-based, fun activities. Our approach to sensory processing therapy also centers around active involvement from your child where they select the activities that they want to do. We have found that by enabling children to decide their own path can lead to faster growth in the efficiency at which they can better organize sensory information.
Your child may also need help with fine motor, visual perceptual, feeding, communication, social, coordination, and a whole host of other skills. Instead of having to schedule different appointments with specialists for each issue, at Handprint Therapies your child’s needs can be addressed by a single team. We actively encourage our team to utilize a multi-disciplinary approach to SPD that can include speech , physical , occupational , and ABA therapy sessions.