Sensory processing disorder (SPD) is a condition in which the brain has trouble receiving and responding to information that comes from the senses. It is is also called sensory integration dysfunction. SPD signs includes discomfort of some clothing texture, poor posture control and strength, discomfort of climbing and fear of heights, tires easily, problems with eating, overly sensitive to stimulation such as touch, sounds, lights, smells, etc., poor motor skills, difficulty learning new task, constant motion, difficulty to follow instructions, etc.
Treatment for sensory processing disorder (SPD) includes therapy, sensory diet and sensory integration challenges to retrain the brain to respond differently to stimulation from the senses.
Each children with SPD are unique so they have different needs and sensory difficulties.
The first step to treat a child is to evaluate which senses are over or under sensitive then the occupational therapies to develop strategies to cope up.
SPD treatment with occupation therapies
Occupational therapies will an activities to help retrain the senses. Therapist may use a sensory integration (OT-SI) approach to begin in a controlled stimulating environment to make SPD can managed in a day-to-day life. OT-SI approach uses fun and stimulating activities to challenge the patient’s senses without overwhelming them. The goal of OT-SI is to have appropriate responses to senses outside the clinic to home, school and life.
SPD treatment with sensory diet
Sensory diet are activities that includes or schedule to a patient’s activities to assist with attention, arousal and adaptive responses to environment. Each patient have different sensory needs so it means that each patient has unique sensory diet suited to his needs. Depending on the senses affected, therapies help to design a sensory diet routine tailored to meet the patient’s needs. Examples of sensory diet activities are swinging on swings, log rolling, climbing ladders, sliding down slides at the playground, rolling a therapy ball on his back while lie on the ground to make sandwich, hopping up and down, jumping on the trampoline, bouncing on the therapy ball, etc.