Jenny Clark

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The Many Adventures of Telehealth in Pediatric Therapy

Telehealth is an adventure in which therapists encounter many new opportunities and challenges. It requires flexibility, creativity, and open-mindedness. In this podcast, Jenny offers some ready-to-implement activity ideas from her experience in telehealth to help make the telehealth adventure easier to navigate.

I know it is very scary to tackle teletherapy for the first time. I was nervous when I started practicing teletherapy 3 years ago. I needed confidence that I could navigate the technology pieces. I needed reassurance that I could be creative with limited resources. I learned a lot about how to effectively implement teletherapy, but it took courage and a sense of adventure.

So I ask you, what would Winnie The Pooh do during this time of COVID-19? Pooh bear is a simple bear with a childlike personality, full of wonder and exploration. He takes things as they come and lives life in a fun and spontaneous manner. And when he lives his life this way, it always turns out just fine. Remember to be like Winnie the Pooh so you don’t get stuck in the mud like Eeyore!

Telehealth truly is an adventure! You will encounter many new opportunities when using telehealth service delivery model for pediatric therapy. You will develop resiliency, just as the children with multiple challenges do in their lives daily. Be flexible, creative, open-minded and expect the unexpected.

Here are some ready-to-implement activity ideas to help make your telehealth adventure a little easier to navigate.

Ready-to-Implement-Activity Ideas

Activity ideas using a paper bag and crayons

  • Tear edges of bag to make fringe
  • Go on a scavenger hunt with paper bag
  • Locomotor actions – pick up a crayon and move across room to place in bag
  • Trace hand on paper bag with crayon
  • Identify objects inside bag without looking

Activity ideas using a couch, pillows, chairs

Good for proprioception input, motor planning and following directions.

  • Hop over a pillow
  • Jump & stop activity on couch
  • Bear walk, crab walk over pillows
  • Pretend turtle with pillow on back while crawling
  • Imitate Ninja moves with pillow

Activity ideas using pipe cleaners

  • String cereal
  • Twist together and jump over
  • Copy design for visual perception
  • Wrap around finger
  • Minute to win it, how many can you pick up in 1 minute

Activity ideas using a playground ball

  • Roll over bowling pins (could be empty plastic bottles)
  • Ball wall walk, don’t let it fall
  • Crab kick
  • Spell words for each catch
  • Over under game with adult assistant

Activity ideas using cotton balls

  • Draw a sheep or cloud on paper and glue cotton balls
  • Sponge painting with cotton balls
  • Pretend feed cotton balls to plush animal
  • While supine, pick up cotton ball with toes and bring to hands
  • Throw and catch cotton ball

Sensory Activities to Connect Children to Nature

In this podcast, Jenny shares tips and strategies for helping children experience nature! Outside time reduces anxiety and depression, improves cardiovascular health due to increased physical activity, improves academic performance, and heightens attention. Research shows that exposure to green space (grass/trees) and blue space (water) have a positive effect on a child’s health. Kids who get outside are happier, have better problem-solving skills, enhanced creativity, and more opportunities for social interactions with others. Spring is just around the corner and it’s time to get kids outside to experience all the sensory wonders of nature.

Nature deficit disorder is a term coined by Richard Louv in his book Last Child in the Woods. It refers to the idea that children are spending less time outdoors resulting in a wide range of behavioral problems. There is an epidemic of lack of exposure to nature because children are choosing screen time over playing outside. Research reveals that the average amount of time spent on electronics is 44 hours per week, and as much as 7 hours per day. Exposure to elements of nature contributes to healthy childhood development. Research shows that exposure to green space (grass/trees) and blue space (water) have a positive effect on a child’s health. Outside time reduces anxiety and depression, improves cardiovascular health due to increased physical activity, improves academic performance, and heightens attention. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health examined the impact of natural settings on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder symptoms and found that “green outdoor settings” reduced symptoms in children with ADHD. Natural environments engage the mind effortlessly thus helping with attention restoration, giving the brain a break from “deliberate direct attention”. Kids who get outside are happier, have better problem-solving skills, enhanced creativity, and more opportunities for social interactions with others. Let’s explore some creative ways to connect children to nature that help develop gross motor skills, balance, bilateral coordination, fine motor skills, visual motor and perceptual skills, and of course sensory regulation with heavy work and movement:

  • Go to the playground. Swing, climb on the monkey bars, just run around.
  • Take a hike. Find a local trail that is easy to access.
  • Go for a bike ride in your local park or on the school playground
  • Join scouts or 4-H. Tons of nature to be explored with these classic organizations.
  • Visit a National Park and be a Jr. Park Ranger. Collect all the badges as your child learns about the world around them.
  • Make a Fairy garden with miniature plants and small fairy items to decorate
  • Plant a small container garden, or just plant a seed in a cup. Perhaps the school has a community garden.
  • Collect nature items and make a sensory colleague with nature textures and scents or do a leaf rubbing with a crayon and paper. Great to increase finger strength.
  • Try Geocaching, a modern-day treasure hunting activity (more at https://www.geocaching.com/play
  • Try out painted rocks. Paint a rock and place them in a park or on a trail for someone to find and keep or re-hide. I have my own painted rock Facebook page. Check it out at FB Dolphin65
  • Explore a nature scavenger hunt. Have a list of nature items to find and check them off as you find each item.
  • Pet an animal; go to the pet store or the Humane society. Try animal-assisted therapy.
  • Hug a tree, climb a tree, feel the tree’s bark texture
  • Listen and locate bird sounds outside
  • Look for birds flying in the air and perching on an object
  • Make a pinecone peanut butter birdfeeder – great for the human senses to experience and food for the birds. A win-win for all!

Integrating the Senses: Valentine’s Day Theme Activities

In this podcast, Jenny shares some fun Valentine’s Day activities that help to integrate the senses. Activities that incorporate the seven senses, especially vestibular and proprioception, help to facilitate sensory integration, which contributes to a child’s ability to concentrate, organize, have self-confidence, and good academic ability.   

We have seven sensory systems which coordinate in synchrony to help with developing a child’s motor skills, language, emotional regulation, and cognitive functioning. The sensory systems include two hidden sensory systems; the vestibular system and the proprioception system and the basic five; touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing. The vestibular system registers head movement in space and has several functions, including facilitating balance and helping a child with maintaining posture. The proprioception system is stimulated during heavy work that causes the muscles to contract or stretch. When a child’s nervous system gets enough proprioception input, the brain sends out neurochemicals called endorphins, which produce an overall calm alertness, helping the child to focus and feel emotional well-being. Activities that incorporate the seven senses, especially vestibular and proprioception, will help to facilitate sensory integration, which contributes to a child’s ability to concentrate, organize, have self-confidence, and good academic ability.   

I would like to share with you some fun Valentine’s Day activities that help to integrate the senses.

  • For Vestibular and proprioception input: Cut out red or pink paper hearts. On each heart, write a locomotor action, such as gallop, march, bear walk, crab walk, jumping jacks. Have the child pick a heart and perform the action. Older children can practice reading skills. You can also work on directional concepts and prepositions by having objects the children move around/under/between/over.
  • Add other senses to the activity.
    • For the sense of smell have scratch and sniff stickers on the hearts for the children to smell
    • For the sense of touch glue different textures to the paper hearts, such as sandpaper, bubble wrap, Velcro, and fabric
    • For the sense of sight, dim the lights in the room and turn on a glow lamp during the activity to create a calmer space.
    • For the sense of hearing play music in the background. The children can practice following directions by moving when the music plays and stopping when the music stops, then moving again when the music starts again. This also helps with impulse control.
  • Let’s finish with a simple and fun fine motor activity for Valentine’s Day. Draw a heart shape about 10” on a piece of aluminum foil. Have the child trace over the heart shape with a marker. If the child can draw a heart shape, have them draw the heart on the aluminum foil. Using either red or pink construction paper or tissue paper, have the child tear small pieces about 1” and glue inside the heart shape on the aluminum foil. This activity develops finger strength, pincer grasp, bilateral coordination skills, and visual motor skills.

Handwriting Strategies for Dysgraphia

Research shows that as many as 20% of school-age children have problems with handwriting.  Illegible handwriting, also known as dysgraphia, is the primary reason for referrals to therapists practicing in school-based settings. This is a significant problem because handwriting is important for many functional life skills, such as completing homework and school assignments. Dysgraphia is common in children with sensory processing disorder and children with autism. In this podcast, Jenny shares insights into handwriting problems and offers simple but effective strategies to support students with dysgraphia.

To purchase Letter Treasure Hunt handwriting game click here.

Research shows that 10%-20% of school-age children have problems with handwriting. Handwriting is important for many functional life skills such as: Complete homework, school assignments, achievement tests for getting into college, writing letters, completing a job application form, and writing checks just to name a few. Illegible handwriting, also known as dysgraphia, is the primary reason for referrals to therapists practicing in school-based settings. Dysgraphia is a neurological disorder in which a person experiences handwriting difficulties. Letter formation may be acceptable in very short samples of writing, but this requires extreme effort and an unreasonable amount of time to accomplish. Overall, written work is not readable, even if copied. Some Signs & Symptoms of dysgraphia:

  • Cramped fingers on writing tool causing hand fatigue
  • Excessive erasures
  • Mixture of upper & lowercase letters
  • Reversal errors (typical through first grade)
  • Inconsistent letter formation & slant
  • Irregular letter sizes & shapes
  • Misuse of line & margin
  • Poor organization on the page
  • Inefficient speed in copying

Here are some simple and effective strategies to support students with dysgraphia:

Let’s consider compensatory strategies:

  • non-sitting positions during handwriting such as prone on the floor, tall kneeling, or standing to assist with posture
  • Ball chair or air-filled cushion for sensory input
  • A slant board helps support the forearm and wrist during writing and positions the paper at just the right visual angle
  • Pencil grips can support and position fingers for the most efficient grasp
  • Adapted handwriting paper such as 2 lined paper to eliminate visual confusion, raised line paper to give a tactile cue for the baseline, or highlighted paper for easier visual target when writing

Here are some accommodations to consider:

  • Change demands of writing rate: Allow more time for written tasks
  • Change volume: Reduce copying by providing math worksheet with problems written 
  • Change tools: Graph paper for math problems, pencil grippers, adapted paper
  • Change format: Do not grade spelling on some assignments

Let’s look at some intervention ideas:

  • Theraputty to increase grip strength
  • Hand and finger warmups to handwriting such as finger thumb touching and squeezing the hands
  • Kinesthetic activities for handwriting such as practicing spelling words in shaving cream
  • Letter Treasure Hunt handwriting game from www.Therapro.com This is my original invention and kids have commented how fun handwriting is when they play this game!

Tools to Help Children Develop Visual Perception

In this audio-cast, Jenny discusses tools that can be used by teachers, therapists, and parents to help children develop visual perception.

Jenny offers presentations, webinars, and workshops for teachers, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and physical therapists. If you are planning a conference and you are looking for a speaker on SPD, please contact Jenny today.

Visual perceptual skills are the foundation skills necessary for reading, writing, and math. There are seven visual perceptual skills that impact learning. A student can have deficits in one or more of these subskills. I would like to share with you a description of these visual perceptual skills, how they might impact children in school, and activities to help improve each area of visual perception to enrich learning ability.  

Visual Discrimination: The ability to discern slight differences between letter shapes, sizes and fonts. This can affect reading comprehension.

Activities: Matching game such as Old Maid, Go Fish, scrabble.

Visual Memory: Important skill for copying from the chalkboard or spelling.

Activities: Memory card game, practice spelling words using a scented marker, then smell the marker just before the test. The olfactory system is linked to memory.

Visual Spatial Relationship: Enables discerning between b-d-p-q. It is important in preventing letter reversals and manipulating columns of numbers.

Activities: Puzzles, parquetry, tanograms.

Visual Form Constancy: It is important in discriminating similar font styles when reading. Can lead to poor reading comprehension and recall.

Activities: Find and circle all of the letter “a’s”  on a magazine or newspaper page. Then find all of the letter “b’s” etc.

Visual Sequential Memory: Affects reading comprehension and spelling. It is important in written organizational skills for creative writing. VSM difficulties may mean that class performance exceeds exam responses.

Activities: Use a hand-held electronic speller. Spell words using magnetic letters. Spell words in modeling clay.

Visual Figure-Ground: Difficult to focus on tasks without being distracted by extraneous input. May lose things easily in desk and would therefore benefit from organizational aids. May lose place on page when reading.

Activities: Use a window guide when reading. Here is one example (Reading Helper 954-752-3692). Hidden picture activity pages such as Highlights magazine, Where’s Waldo or I-Spy books.

Visual Closure: Difficulties may affect word identification, seeing words “spl-it”, or omitting letters when reading.

Activities: Finish the picture activity books, dot-to-dot (ask child what the picture is before completing it).

Physical Activities to get Kids Moving

In this audio-cast, Jenny explains why reducing screen time is important for children with autism and SPD. She offers practical and effective strategies that teachers, parents and therapists can use to “get kids moving!”

If your child is autistic, on the spectrum, or has been identified with sensory processing disorder, there are many more options to explore at JennyLClark.com

Jenny offers presentations, webinars and workshops for teachers, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and physical therapists. If you are planning a conference and you are looking for a speaker on SPD, please contact Jenny today.

Health-related problems in children is on the rise, such as childhood obesity, anxiety, depression, and developmental disorders like Autism and Attention Deficit Disorder.

Increased time spent with electronic media results in a more sedentary lifestyle, and less time engaging in physical activity. Research shows that too much screen time correlates with decreased developmental milestones including lower fine motor skills and affects language and literacy development. Evidence shows that children who engage in physical activity have better attention, memory, academic performance, and psychosocial functioning.

The solution – get kids unplugged and moving!

I’d like to share with you some physical activity ideas for children for both outdoor and indoor play.

Outdoor play is best. Studies show that kids who play outside are happier, more focused and less anxious. Outdoor play stimulates social interactions, improves problem solving and enhances creativity. Studies show that just 5 minutes of walking in nature improves mood, self-esteem, creative thinking, builds stronger bones, and improves cardiovascular functioning.

Here are a few outdoor activities to get kids moving:

  • Play in a local park. Visit a State Park or a National Park. The National Parks have a Jr Park Ranger program.
  • Take a dog on a walk or to a dog park
  • Play a sport with a friend like kicking a soccer ball, throwing a baseball or a football
  • Take a hike on a trail. Explore the wonders of nature.
  • Ride a bike. For children who are still using training wheels, remove the training wheels, take the pedals off, and lower the seat so that the child’s feet touch the ground. This is a great way to teach kids how to balance on a bike
  • Go to the Zoo.
  • Visit a botanical garden.
  • Try Geocaching, a modern-day treasure hunting activity. For more details, go to www.geocaching.com
  • Create your own garden. Container gardens are great for planting flowers or herbs. Perhaps your hometown has a community garden kids can get involved in.

For those days when weather keeps you inside here are some fun activities:

  • Yoga for kids. If you are not familiar with yoga, try reading a children’s book with illustrations and instructions on yoga poses for kids. A great resource for this is www.kidsyogastories.com .
  • My book entitled: Learn to Move, Move to Learn has theme-based activities from A to Z. If you are interested in getting a copy, there is a link on my website to the publisher, or you can order it from Amazon. Feel free to email me to request a free lesson plan. Here some example kids can do right away:
    • The Theme is Pets.
    • Pretend to be a cat or a puppy dog performing tricks. Use a mat and practice log rolling both directions, then knee walk (begging), then crawl forward. Older kids can practice forward and backward tumbling.
    • Explain that dogs love to tug on a rope. A dog uses its teeth, but the children will use their hands. Face each other and play tug of war with a jump rope. For older kids practice jump rope games.
    • Create a small pet house from a cardboard box and place a stuffed cat and dog or a photo of a cat and dog inside. Get real cat treats and dog bones or make pretend treats and bones from construction paper. Carry the treats across a balance beam (or 6’ masking tape placed on the floor) to the cardboard box “pet house”. Pretend to give the pet a treat. Repeat several times. For older kids, walk heel to toe on the balance beam or masking tape.
    • Pretend to play fetch and throw a ball back and forth. This develops eye-hand coordination.

Relieving Holiday Stress at Mealtime — tips to help children with SPD and Austim

The Holidays are all about family and food.  While this is a wonderful time for many, children with sensory processing disorder or Autism find the combination to be challenging.  The loud noises, unfamiliar people, different schedules, new smells, and strange foods can upset children with SPD or Autism.  I want to help make things a bit easier by sharing some tips that will help you create a sensory-friendly environment for children which will then make festive meals and other mealtimes a more enjoyable activity of daily living for all involved.  

The Holidays are all about family and food.  While this is a wonderful time, it is important for parents and therapists to realize that many children with sensory processing disorder or Autism find the combination to be challenging.  Children with SPD or Autism can often be picky eaters.  And while this is frequently difficult, it is especially so when there are new people around who may not understand the behavior.  Full of good intentions, family members can pressure children with SPD to eat food.  This increases the anxiety felt by children and makes their lives even more challenging.  All too often, “family and food” cause stress for children whose response can be overwhelming – and put a damper on a time of thankful celebration.

I want to help make things a bit easier by sharing some tips that will help parents create a sensory-friendly environment for children which will then make Holiday meals and other mealtimes a more enjoyable activity of daily living for all involved.  

  • First, it is important to educate family members and friends who may be joining you, ahead of time about your child’s sensory difficulties. Teach them the sensory strategies that help your child. This will help them to be aware of how they interact toward your child, and can make a huge difference in everyone’s enjoyment of the day. 
  • Secondly, make sure that both you and your guests realize that it is never productive to force a child with SPD or Autism to touch, taste or eat a food they dislike. Encourage them to taste it, but allow them to say “No thank you”.
  • Next, understanding the reasons for children’s negative responses can be helpful to both alleviate stress and create a better sensory environment.
    • Texture of food is one of the most difficult challenges to address for children who are picky eaters. Their tactile system can go on high alert, causing them to gag on the food and may result in explosive behaviors. Honor a child’s food sensitivity. Consider making pureed food options or purchase and have ready freeze-dried vegetables, depending on the child’s preference for texture; smooth or crunchy. 
    • Some smells can set off a child’s nervous system into sensory overload. Have neutral scents ready for the child to smell. These include coffee, cinnamon, and cloves. Put a small amount of the scent into a miniature container with a lid and set it by the child’s plate so they can sniff it as needed.
    • Many children do not like having their food touch on their plate. Avoid food touching by using separate dishes for each food item or a plate that has dividers.
    • Holiday mealtimes are typically at a different time of the day than normal mealtimes. A child can get low blood sugar if the holiday meal is at 2:00 instead of 12:00, setting off their sensory overload before the meal even starts. Consider having your holiday mealtime at the family’s normal time of the day for lunch or dinner.
    • Consider the temperature of the food. Some children prefer cold food, some warm, some room temperature.
    • Children who are sensitive to sound may benefit from quiet conversations and soft background music during mealtime.
  • Finally, here are some activities you can do ahead of time to make the day more peaceful and enjoyable. 
    • Physical activity before mealtime will help a child’s nervous system be in a more neurologically regulated state. Add deep relaxed breathing, and you have a recipe for calm alertness. Get outside and play!
    • Let your child help with Holiday meal preparations. This too can help with minimizing anxiety, because it’s engages them to participate in meaningful occupation, which helps the child feel included, when they may feel different because of their sensory needs.
    • Children with SPD may feel anxious about what to expect when mealtimes are different than most mealtimes. Talk to them ahead of time about who is coming to visit for dinner. Perhaps let the child set the table, allowing them to select who sits where. They could even work on fine motor skills and make place cards with family member name.

And remember:  children who are picky eaters as a result of sensory challenges feel like their body and the environment are controlling them. Giving these children a sense of control helps to decrease anxiety. Allowing choices ahead of mealtime, and during mealtime, shifts their sensory system from stress response to the ‘rest & digest’ mode. For example, let the child select their favorite plate ahead of time or choose a plush animal to sit with them. What is the child’s favorite comfort item?

Therapeutic Fun with Wikki Stix

Wikki Stix is a product made of wax coated yarn. Parents, teachers, and pediatric occupational therapists can all use Wikki Stix with children. Touching Wikki Stix wax coated yarn stimulates the tactile system. Wikki Stix  are fun and motivating.  Give a listen to this short podcast to see how children with tactile sensitivity benefit from Wikki Stix fun.

For more information on Wikki Stix go to wikkistix.com

Wikki Stix is a product made of wax coated yarn. Parents, teachers, and pediatric occupational therapists can all use Wikki Stix with children.

Touching Wikki Stix wax coated yarn stimulates the tactile system. Some children have tactile sensitivity, some are tactile seeking, and some are tactile underresponive. Wikki Stix benefits all 3 sensory modulation subtypes.

The fun and motivating Wikki Stix may encourage children with tactile sensitivity to tolerate touching the Wikki Stix, thereby increasing exposure to noxious tactile input. This may carry over to other tactile challenges, such as tolerating hands in messy art material. 

Children who are tactile seeking benefit from engaging with Wikki Stix because the stickiness may satiate their neurological need for tactile input.  This may carry over to helping these children decrease their excessive need to touch objects in the classroom.

Tactile sensory underresponsive children gain increased tactile input while engaging with Wikki Stix. The increased tactile input these children experience, may help them to feel a pencil in their hand with increased sensory awareness, thereby helping them with improved pencil control for handwriting.

Manipulating Wikki Stix to create designs helps children developing important fine motor foundation skills such as pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, in-hand manipulation, and prehension. These can carry over to functional skills such as manipulating scissors, holding a crayon or pencil with correct grasp, and successful use of math manipulatives.

Using Wikki Stix to copy designs helps to build important visual motor and visual perceptual skills, the foundation skills necessary for reading, math, and handwriting.  

Wikki Stix can be used for visual accommodations in the classroom.

  • Stick on handwriting paper to give a tactile cue for baseline letters
  • Stick around coloring picture to teach children coloring inside boundary lines
  • Use for visual cue to mark reading line to help children keep from visually skipping lines
  • Roll a Wikki Stix into a small ball and place on larger numbers for Touch Math
  • Use Wikki Stix for a hand fidget
  • Wrap a Wikki Stix at base of pencil for an instant pencil grip
  • Stick to paper to stabilize it on desk

Here are some fun activity ideas with Wikki Stix. You can find more ideas at: www.Wikkistix.com

3 Deep Relaxed Breathing Exercises to Help Children with Sensory Processing Disorder and Autism

Deep relaxed breathing has many neurophysiological benefits for children, especially those with Sensory Processing Disorder and Autism.   These children experience ‘fight, flight, freeze’ stress response frequently throughout their daily activities. Listen to this short podcast that outlines the benefits of deep breathing that can help children experience life with more joy and laughter.

Deep relaxed breathing has many neurophysiological benefits for children, especially those with Sensory Processing Disorder and Autism.   These children experience ‘fight, flight, freeze’ stress response frequently throughout their daily activities. Here are some of the benefits of deep breathing that can help children experience life with more joy and laughter.  

  • Deep breathing facilitates the ANS to attain and maintain parasympathetic function – the ‘rest & digest’ system
  • Has a modulating effect creating a calm alertness
  • Increases oxygen helping to ‘wake up’ the brain
  • Reduces anxiety
  • Enables healthier sleep patterns
  • Modulates appetite
  • Decreases fatigue
  • Improves emotional regulation

Children need to be taught deep diaphragmatic breathing patterns, so they can learn to control their breathing for slow, deep, relaxed breaths.

3 Deep Relaxed Breathing Exercises for Children

  1. Feather Breathing

This is my signature technique from my Learn to Move, Move to Learn book and program.  Use craft feathers. These provide a tactile and a visual cue to teach children good diaphragmatic breathing patterns.

Sit in a comfortable position, hold a craft feather in the palm of your hand close to your face, then cue the children “Breath in slowly through your nose like you’re smelling a flower, blow out slowly, don’t let you feather fall”. Note: Demonstrate this to show the children if you breathe out slowly the feather will stay in your hand, and if you blow too hard, the feather will fall.  Repeat at least 3 times.

  • Balloon Breath

Have children sit in a comfortable position and place their hands around their mouth, to pretend they are getting ready to blow up a balloon. Demonstrate and teach children to breathe slowly in through your nose and breathe slowly out through your mouth, moving hands outward as if you are blowing up a balloon on each exhalation. Repeat 3 times moving hands slightly farther apart on each exhalation until the balloon is as big as it can get. Pretend to tie it closed and let it float away in the air.

  • Belly Breathing with Beanbag Animal

Have children lie on the floor and place a small beanbag animal on their stomach. Cue the children “Breathe in slowly though your nose and feel the stuffed animal rise, breathe out slowly through your mouth and then feel the animal lower.  Repeat at least 3 times. Play quiet music for increased relaxation.

Props & Extras:

  • Blowing bubbles or Blowing streamers

Halloween Sensory Tips for Parents and Teachers

Halloween can be overwhelming for children with Sensory Processing Disorder. Have a listen to this short podcast where we’ll explore some sensory tips to consider, and help children with SPD and Autism feel included and enjoy this fun Holiday!

Halloween can be overwhelming for children with Sensory Processing Disorder. Let’s explore some sensory tips to consider, and help children with SPD and Autism feel included and enjoy this fun Holiday!

  • Halloween costumes
    • Tactile issues with fabric, too itchy, too tight, too stiff, too crunchy – have child try on costume test comfort level
    • Wash a costume several times to soften the fabric before wearing it
    • Temperature depending –  too hot, too cold
    • Poor motor planning – Practice putting the costume on at home before taking it to school party
  • Masks & Face paint – AVOID these
    • Tactile sensitivity
    • Difficulty seeing
    • Smell overwhelming can cause nausea and headaches
  • School Halloween parties overwhelming
    • Sounds – play quiet music in background or have child wear headphones or earplugs
    • Sights – Limit Halloween decorations especially moving objects
    • Smells – Have modulating scents available to sniff if smells are offensive (coffee beans)
  • Halloween activities
    • Carving a pumpkin – tactile defensive with scraping out gooey innards of a pumpkin, instead have child decorate a pumpkin using Fun Foam stickers
    • Instead of bobbing for apples, have child paint with sliced apples
  • Consider alternative ways to participate in Halloween rather than ‘Trick or Treating’
    • Passing out candy
    • Cooking Halloween treats at home
    • Watch Halloween shows that are family friendly
  • Trick or Treating
    • Practice ahead of time the sequence to decrease anxiety about what to expect
    • Limit number of houses to your child’s sensory needs (i.e. 10 houses)
    • Map out and practice the Trick or Treating route ahead of time
    • Candy givers – Don’t demand children say “Trick or Treat”
    • Offer 2 choices of candy rather than an entire basket
  • Trick or Treating locations
    • Avoid houses with elaborate lawn decorations can seem real to children with SPD
    • Quiet neighborhoods
    • Churches Trick or Trunk
    • Local shops giving out candy in your hometown