These feelings you have may help you relate to this week's topic. Leslie Brown, our HSE Autism Specialist, shares what life is like for students who have trouble filtering the world around them.
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| We all know the Five Senses. Are there more? |
From Leslie: Driving in the Rain
When we hear
the word sensory, what are the first
thoughts that pop in your mind? It is likely the traditional five senses we all
learned in early elementary.
We now know
there are more: Our body’s ability to know its position in space, the ability
to use touch to find an item without our vision, the balance receptors in our
ears that loved roller coasters as teens but now they might make us queasy. Our
brain filters millions of sensory messages each day, and those of us with
mature systems can attend and respond to relevant sensory messages, and we ignore
those that are not important!
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| When you are on sensory overload, what do you need most? |
Imagine your
daily life if you could not filter all the sensory messages coming to you
throughout the day. Sand, finger painting,
different textures, loud noises, fire alarms…. We are surrounded by sensory
input all day long. Most of us filter
these away. But what if you can’t?
We Know the Feeling
Have you ever
felt as if you were experiencing sensory overload? Think of times when you had too much coming
at you. There may have been too much
sound, too little space, or overwhelming combinations of sights, smells, and
emotions.
As an adult,
we know how to cope. We might take a deep, cleansing breath: inhale, exhale,
repeat. Maybe we get up and walk away
for a bit in order to reset our feelings.
We may even pour ourselves into our favorite clothes, sink into our
favorite chair, cover up with our cozy blanket, and forget the world for a few
minutes.
Most of us,
when we encounter these sensory overloads have gained knowledge of how to meet
our needs in these situations. We have
learned to COPE.
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| Driving in the rain at high speeds.... And no wipers! |
What if You Can't Cope?
Our students,
our kiddos in our care daily, are still gaining this knowledge. We hold the key to help them start learning
to use their coping skills to meet their own sensory needs, and function in the
world around them. Helping them become
the collaborators, imaginers, creators, and learners of the future.
A great website to learn more about helping ALL children
foster coping skills, not just those on the autism spectrum, A Sensory Life. They use this metaphor:
Imagine driving along the freeway and it starts to drizzle. You are able to maintain safety and ignore
the few rain drops. Your brain at this
point sees the sensory input as irrelevant or not important. Then it starts to
rain just a bit harder. You really start
to notice the drops on the windshield now, but you keep driving. When it begins to pour you HAVE to use your windshield wipers. You cannot
keep driving safely without them.
Use this scenario to imagine how a child who over-registers sensory
input must feel with ANY type of sensory message. How would you feel if you were driving at high speeds in pouring rain and the wipers stopped working?
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| Educators know the truth of this statement! |
This is the feeling some of our children have regularly. Sometimes the wipers work, but sometimes they do not: they may not turn on at all or they may un too slowly or inconsistently.
They don’t “wipe it away.”
We Make the Difference
It is vital
to remember that we cannot withhold sensory interventions for our
students. These interventions are as
important to them as windshield wipers are to us while driving in a downpour.
Sensory needs
are neurologically based and need to be added throughout a student’s day, not
earned by the student. If you are not sure how to empower a student with
sensory needs who is in your classroom, your Exceptional Learners Department
can help. Each building has an occupational therapist who, along with resource
staff and our intervention specialists can help you identify strategies to help
students with sensory needs.
Please
contact us and use us. We are here to
help.
Respond to
Leslie at labrown@hse.k12.in.us
Have a great week, HSE. At this time of year, it is certainly important to find ways to cope with sensory overload, both for your students and for yourselves.
- Jan Combs, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning
- Stephanie Loane, Director of Elementary Education
- Tom Bell, Director of Special Education
- Jeff Harrison, Director of Educational Technology
- Phil Lederach, Director of Secondary Education
