Last Updated on By Deepam Pawar 3 Comments
Sensory Tactile Activities –
Tactile activities can be an important part of sensory diet or fine motor skill building program. Tactile activities are very helpful in problems like hand and finger awareness, attention, and fine motor planning.
What is a tactile system?
The tactile system provides us with our sense of touch. The sense of touch isimportant for growth and development, as well as survival.
The tactile system receives information about touch from receptor cells inthe skin. The receptors are all over the bodies, providing information aboutlight touch, vibration, pressure, temperature, and pain.
The Tactile system provides us information which is required for every activity of daily life it includes, eating, toileting, dressing, combing, household chores, school works, and job works.
Tactile Dysfunction-
Like vestibular dysfunction, the child with tactile dysfunction also has hyper or hypo-sensitive to touch or may have problems with tactile discrimination. Some children may excessively or under register the touch input. They may have a problem with tactile sensory modulation. It may create a problem in daily routine life.
- Tactile defensiveness-
In tactile defensiveness, the child may interpret and react harmless lighttouch as being potentially dangerous. These children may appear anxious,aggressive, unwilling to participate in home and school activities.
- Hypo responsive to touch-
Some kids may have hypo-responsive to the touch input. They may have a low arousal level and may not register some of the touch stimuli. This poor response to touch input may hamper the activities of daily living. Body awareness and motor planning may be disturbed.
- Touch seeker-
Some children seem to seek out excessive amounts of touch sensations. Theycrave for the touch sensation. They try to touch everything around.
The tactile system is very important for the development of other skillslike gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Sensory tactile activities maybe used to improve the modulation of tactile sensation.
CHARACTERISTICS OF TACTILE DYSFUNCTION–
The child who is over responsive to touch stimuli may:
- Rubbing off kisses or casual touches andpushing others away to avoid closeness.
- Instantly and intensely exhibit a “fight or flight” response or a “flight or freeze” response to harmless touch sensations.
- Dislike messy activities (cooking,painting, using chalk or tape).
- Be bothered by certain types of clothing,and be particularly sensitive to sock seams, shoes, and tags in shirts.
- Avoids some foods (rice, chunky peanutbutter, lumpy mashed potatoes, vegetables) because of texture.
- Dislike swimming, bathing, brushingteeth, or having a hair cut.
The child who is under responsive to touch sensationsmay:
- Seem unaware of touch unless it is intense, showing little reaction to pain, and getting hurt without realizing it.
- Not realizing he/she has dropped something.
- Have poor body awareness.
- Disregard, whether clothes are on straight or face is messy.
- Physically hurt other people or pets, not comprehending their pain.
The child who seeks extra touch sensations may:
- Touch objects and people constantly, with“in your face” behavior.
- Seek certain messy experiences, often forlong durations.
- Rub or bite own skin; twirl hair infingers; prefer being barefoot.
- Chew on inedible objects (fingernails,collars, cuffs, toys, pencils).
Tactile activities-
Tactile activities under the sensory integration therapy by the occupationaltherapist help the child to modulate the tactile sensation.
Tactile activities include –
- Wilbarger protocol for sensory defensiveness. Provides deep pressure to the skin on the arms, back, and legs through the use of the special surgical brush.
- Brushing – Brushing on body parts like hand or legs with crayons or chalk and then erasing with various textures.
- Massage – body massage with lotions.
- Tactile box – which may include cornmeal, oatmeal, water, sand, different types of textured items, etc.
- Treasure Hunt – hide small objects in play Doh or to the tactile box to find with fingers.
- Painting- outdoor with water, paint roller in bathtub, soap crayons.
- Shaving Cream – to draw or blow
- Tactile box to collect small items and different textures to match and sort.
- Face and body paints, temporary tattoos or stickers.
- Blindfold games- pin the tail on the donkey.
- Daily access to dry sensory play materials (e.g. rice, sand, or beans)
- Toys hidden in the sensory play materials.
- “High fives” throughout the day.
- Drawing in sand or salt.
- Therapy tubing, therapy putty, balloons or rubber gloves filled with things like corn, flour, rice, etc.
- Wheelbarrow walking over various surfaces.
Generally, theproprioceptive activities,tactile activities,and vestibular activities may beused in thesensory integration therapy.for the kids withADHDandAutism.
References-
- Smith, Sinclair A., et al. “Effects of sensory integrationintervention on self-stimulating and self-injurious behaviors.”American Journal of Occupational Therapy4(2005): 418-425.
- Yack, Ellen, Shirley Sutton, and Paula Aquilla.Building bridges through sensoryintegration. Future Horizons, 2003.
- Kranowitz, Carol Stock.Theout-of-sync child: Recognizing and coping with sensory processing disorder.Penguin, 2005.
- Larkey, Sue.Practicalsensory programmes for students with autism spectrum disorders.Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007.
