Sensory Motor Stimulation
Sensory Motor Stimulation: Neurobehavioral
Disorders, Physical Therapies, Auditory, Visual, Tactile
Sensory Motor Stimulation is a form of physical
therapy. We have found that children with
hemisphere imbalances also tend to display sensory
system imbalances when we look at the individual senses, (vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell) and
Proprioception (movement).
These children may display:
-
Decreased propioceptive abilities
-
Decreased body awareness
-
Decreased visual spatial awareness
-
Hypotactility - a child's sense of touch is diminished and they will not be able to feel light touches or even pain and temperature extremes. A child with hypotactility may look for opportunities to experience "touch" by:
-
Hypertactility - when the child's sense of touch is heightened, often characterized by:
-
Aversion to being touched or hugged
Even the gentlest of touches can feel uncomfortable and even painful to a hypersensitive child and can result in a "melt down".
Hypertactile children react badly when they are hurt or injured because the pain is magnified.
Parents need to understand this when dealing with small scratches and abrasions.
Simple tasks like bathing, trimming nails, going for a haircut and even changing clothes or trying on new clothes can lead to upset and tantrums.
-
Dislike of hot and cold extremes -
either being hot or cold or touching things that are hot or
cold
-
Hyposmell (hypo-olfactory) - child will be drawn to smelly places, like the kitchen when you're cooking or baking, and will constantly smell things - toys, grass, soil, plants, shoes, laundry,
etc.
Children with hyposmell love the aroma of freshly laundered clothes and will love bathing with strong smelling soaps or shower gels.
Their need to smell may actually distract the child,
which can negatively affect scholastic performance.
-
Hypertaste and smell - when their senses
of taste and smell are heightened, a child may have real
trouble eating and may follow a very rigid diet which
consists of just a few bland foods they can tolerate
All of these symptoms are relative imbalances of sensory system, largely secondary to lack of adequate propioceptive stimulation of their brain.
Stimulation Treatments
for the Sensory System
When we look at a
child's sensory systems from a neurological standpoint,
the only constant input
to their nervous system
that sends input to our
brain is gravity acting on our muscles and joints, and normal movement through a gravity field.
Light, sound, touch, taste and smell are all non-constant stimuli. The non-constants work off of the constants. If the constants are aberrant, the non-constants are in an imbalanced state.
Largely, our findings
are that children with neurobehavioral disorders lack good propioceptive ability, a lack of proper coordination, timing, muscle tonicity, etc.
To help improve propioceptive ability, we use
a program of sensory motor stimulation in our
treatment plan. We have the child perform activities that will increase strength and feedback of para-spinal muscles, and muscles, joints, skin, and inner ear mechanisms that will increase the input into the brain. The activities
include:
-
Auditory Stimulation - we utilize two programs, depending on the need of the child;
Samonas and
The Listening Program (TLP.) TLP
is tailored to stimulate certain areas of the brain to evoke
inner ear responses
-
Visual stimulation - we utilize different levels of stimulation based on what the child can tolerate. For example, it could be the patching of one eye so that the child has to work the weaker eye more, or using a penlight to stimulate the pupilary response on one side or the other. We also utilize eyelights, which are glasses that light up on one side or the other to stimulate the opposite hemisphere
-
Tactile stimulation - brushing various textures against the skin to evoke either a positive or negative response, depending on which hemisphere of the brain is imbalanced
-
Vestibular stimulation - exercises to
help improve balance disorders, such as
swinging/rocking/jumping, rotating chair, visual pursuit,
and gaze stabilization
-
Gross and fine motor exercises
-
Olfactory (Smell) stimulation - we utilize both positive and negative scents depending on which hemisphere of the brain is imbalanced
|