Well, messy play is possibly one of my all time favourite things to do as a special needs teacher. I can sometimes spend a ridiculous amount of time trawling pinterest for new ideas to engage the young children that I work with. I often get carried away in fact. Which leads me to the main part of my blog, touch and tactile sensations.
Wet sand between your toes at the seaside, hot bubbly baths, making dough for bread. For me, each of these things is a joy. But to someone who has tactile difficulties, or is tactile defensive, this can be their idea of hell. I was at a school not long ago, and the staff said that the child didn't like getting messy, and promptly put their hands in paint to make the stars for the christmas card. I can understand peoples intentions (or at least I try to) but we need to raise awareness of what that child or young person may be feeling.
We have two types of response to touch, protective and discriminative. Now, the discriminative system helps us with things such as what we are touching, the size, shape and location of the thing we are touching or if something is touching our body and where, for a few examples. The protective system is there to alert us to potentially dangerous stimuli.
For some of us, these systems (which both work at the same time) can sometimes respond in different ways, and that could mean that touch which most would think is pleasant, in fact causes distress. There are lots of websites that you can look at for more information about the tactile system and the way it works in the body http://www.sensoryintegration.org.uk is a great place to start.
What we can do to support young children is start with dry crunchy materials to support them getting used to different tactile stimuli. Here are a selection that I have found on pinterest to get you thinking about your next messy play table, and how to meet the needs of the children that you work with.
(Images by tamingthegoblin, stompinginthemud, oneperfectday, makedoandfriend.blogspot- all from pinterest search 'dry messy play')
Wet sand between your toes at the seaside, hot bubbly baths, making dough for bread. For me, each of these things is a joy. But to someone who has tactile difficulties, or is tactile defensive, this can be their idea of hell. I was at a school not long ago, and the staff said that the child didn't like getting messy, and promptly put their hands in paint to make the stars for the christmas card. I can understand peoples intentions (or at least I try to) but we need to raise awareness of what that child or young person may be feeling.
We have two types of response to touch, protective and discriminative. Now, the discriminative system helps us with things such as what we are touching, the size, shape and location of the thing we are touching or if something is touching our body and where, for a few examples. The protective system is there to alert us to potentially dangerous stimuli.
For some of us, these systems (which both work at the same time) can sometimes respond in different ways, and that could mean that touch which most would think is pleasant, in fact causes distress. There are lots of websites that you can look at for more information about the tactile system and the way it works in the body http://www.sensoryintegration.org.uk is a great place to start.
What we can do to support young children is start with dry crunchy materials to support them getting used to different tactile stimuli. Here are a selection that I have found on pinterest to get you thinking about your next messy play table, and how to meet the needs of the children that you work with.
(Images by tamingthegoblin, stompinginthemud, oneperfectday, makedoandfriend.blogspot- all from pinterest search 'dry messy play')
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