We received a question from a listener and today we’re diving into her and her toddler’s situation! This toddler is a sensory seeker (seeks out heavy work), but also a sensory avoider (avoids certain textures). We talk about: primitive reflexes, sensory diets, vibration, messy play, and MORE!
If you have an infant or toddler, check out our Infant and Toddler Sensory Development Digital Course
Make sure to check out all of our links below!
We’d love to answer your questions on the podcast! Fill out this form -> https://harkla.typeform.com/to/ItWxQNP3
Looking for more in-depth help? Sign up for 2-on-1 Mentoring With Us!!
Brought To You By Harkla
This podcast is brought to you by Harkla. Our mission at Harkla is to help those with special needs live happy and healthy lives. We accomplish this through high-quality sensory products & child development courses.
Podcast listeners get 10% off their first order at Harkla with the discount code "sensory". Head to Harkla.co/sensory to start shopping now.
Links
All Things Sensory Podcast Instagram
Harkla YouTube Channel
Harkla Website - Shop Sensory Products!
Harkla Instagram
Episode 5 - Favorite Products for Infant and Toddler Development
Episode 189 - Do’s and Don'ts with your Infant or Toddler from an OT Perspective
The Listening Program
The Safe and Sound Protocol
We received a question from a listener and today we’re diving into her and her toddler’s situation! This toddler is a sensory seeker (seeks out heavy work), but also a sensory avoider (avoids certain textures). We talk about: primitive reflexes, sensory diets, vibration, messy play, and MORE!
If you have an infant or toddler, check out our Infant and Toddler Sensory Development Digital Course
Make sure to check out all of our links below!
We’d love to answer your questions on the podcast! Fill out this form -> https://harkla.typeform.com/to/ItWxQNP3
Looking for more in-depth help? Sign up for 2-on-1 Mentoring With Us!!
Brought To You By Harkla
This podcast is brought to you by Harkla. Our mission at Harkla is to help those with special needs live happy and healthy lives. We accomplish this through high-quality sensory products & child development courses.
Podcast listeners get 10% off their first order at Harkla with the discount code "sensory". Head to Harkla.co/sensory to start shopping now.
Links
All Things Sensory Podcast Instagram
Harkla YouTube Channel
Harkla Website - Shop Sensory Products!
Harkla Instagram
Episode 5 - Favorite Products for Infant and Toddler Development
Episode 189 - Do’s and Don'ts with your Infant or Toddler from an OT Perspective
The Listening Program
The Safe and Sound Protocol
So the non question is that she just wants to know how to help her daughter, right? She's noticing these sensory challenges. She wants to know what she can do to help.
Jessica Hill:So, from reading her not question, it sounds like she is over responsive to tactile inputs. And it sounds like maybe she's a sensory seeker, she moves a lot, she seeks out heavy work. So with that in mind, we want to make sure we're meeting her sensory needs.
Rachel Harrington:I'm Rachel.
Jessica Hill:And I'm Jessica. And this is All Things Sensory by Harkla.
Rachel Harrington:We are both certified occupational therapy assistants and together with Harkla, we are on a mission to empower parents, therapists, and educators to help raise confident and strong children of all abilities.
Jessica Hill:On this podcast, we chat about all things sensory, diving into special needs, occupational therapy, parenting, self care, overall health and wellness, and so much more.
Rachel Harrington:We're here to provide raw, honest and fun strategies, ideas and information for parents, therapists and educators as well as other professionals to implement into daily life.
Jessica Hill:Thank you so much for joining us.
Rachel Harrington:Hello, hello, welcome back. We're happy to have you here. Today, we are answering a listener question from a mom who has a 19 month old.
Jessica Hill:We're gonna read her question. It's a little bit long, so stay with us.
Rachel Harrington:I wouldn't say it's a question. I would say it's more of like more background information, more of the detailed information that we need in order to answer her question. Yes. Right. Yeah, yeah.
Jessica Hill:Yeah. And then after we read her not question, I think we just have to go back and forth because it's not a we will chat about, we'll chat about some brainstorming and some things that we think she can incorporate. And hopefully she'll listen to this. If you have a question that you want us to answer on the podcast, you can go to the show notes, and there is a link there where you can fill out a form and ask us question. So, with that being said, who is reading the question? question. It's background information. So we'll just take turns starting quote now, yes,
Rachel Harrington:"Hello, not an OT, but a mom aware of her 19 month old sensory needs. She was born with a unilateral hearing loss identified when she failed multiple newborn hearing screenings..."
Jessica Hill:"We were able to sign up for a government program that allowed us in home visits to support her learning and development through this organization and our own in home visits, we were made aware of our daughter's sensory needs."
Rachel Harrington:"As a younger baby, she was extremely adverse to diaper changes, certain textures of foods, most clothing and many other things."
Jessica Hill:"Now as a very mobile toddler, she's still very picky about clothing, often preferring to go without clothes or shoes, still picky about food textures, not preferring most meats or mushy foods, but she loves anything on a bone. She has never preferred to be held, cuddled, or kissed for long moments, though she does need and come to me for hugs if she has had or is having a hard moment."
Rachel Harrington:"She's still nurses and has always needed me to co-sleep with her for regulation, she will often wake if I leave. Another unique thing that she has always done is twiddle the breast that she's not nursing on. This is something that she has done and continues to do."
Jessica Hill:"I know there are so many more things that I can't think of things we tried to do with her are allowed her freedom to move her body in the ways that feel best to her example, letting her push the coffee table across the room, run outside, play with trees, sticks, rocks, etc. Engage in waterplay climb almost anything with supervision. We do lots of massages, toe pulling, she loves it so much it puts her to sleep and outside time."
Rachel Harrington:"My biggest concern is that there's so much sensory seeking that I'm observing, and I have such a big knowledge gap. I want to know what I can do to better support her. Luckily, she's potty trained herself so diapers are no longer an issue."
Jessica Hill:That's freaking amazing.
Rachel Harrington:So the non question is that she just wants to know how to help her daughter, right? She's noticing these sensory challenges. She wants to know what she can do to help. It doesn't sound like she's still in the government program that's doing in home visit.
Jessica Hill:But she could be. She's still young enough for early intervention.
Rachel Harrington:If she's, yeah, and I'm not sure where she lives if she's in the States or if she's out of the states. But that could be something to look into.
Jessica Hill:From reading her not question, it sounds like she is over responsive to tactile input. And it sounds like maybe she's a sensory seeker, she moves a lot, she seeks out heavy work. So with that in mind, we want to make sure are meeting her sensory needs. I think this mom is doing a great job by letting her play outside and running, jumping, water play, climbing, pushing the coffee table across the room, awesome, massages. It seems like she's actually doing a fairly good job of helping her child meet her sensory needs, which is great. We probably want to incorporate more messy play maybe with food during play time, not during meal time. Because if she is a picky eater, and if she is over responsive to tactile input, we want to provide her with those opportunities so that her tactile system can learn how to process different types of tactile input.
Rachel Harrington:I am curious what her language and communication, both receptive and expressive communication, looks like. Is she able to express her sensory needs? Is she able to express what she wants and what she needs? She said that she does come for hugs if she's having a hard moment.
Jessica Hill:She has a unilateral hearing loss. I'd be curious if she uses some sort of communication device for communication.
Rachel Harrington:And I'm curious how intense the hearing loss is just one ear. Is it?
Jessica Hill:Wait, yeah, unilateral would be one side,
Rachel Harrington:Yeah. Is she completely deaf in one ear? Can right? she still hear a little bit? From one of the courses that Jess and I are both taking right now. It is recommending citrus smells to help build stem cells, as well as visual activities and like multi sensory activities, which we love multi sensory processing activities. So incorporating those can help increase potentially visual skills, auditory skills, olfactory skills, but yeah, this the first thing that came to mind was adding citrus smells to increase themselves and make things wire a little bit more fluidly together in your brain.
Jessica Hill:So with that in mind, she could do some play with citrus foods, maybe oranges and grapefruits, do activities with those, get some citrus essential oils are several different Yeah, essential oil, orange and different mixes as well. And add those to some sensory bins. Maybe add it on to like a drop on to a scrunchy that she can wear around her wrist. And she can smell throughout the day, defuse some of those citrus smells in the house.
Rachel Harrington:Cut some oranges and put them in water and offer like a sensory play activity with like orange slices and water. Maybe have her stack them or cut them or just feel them and smell them and
Jessica Hill:Squeeze them for orange juice. Another thought that we had was because of the tight tactile hypersensitivity, we would want to do a lot of sensory based activities that address the Moro reflex, she's only 19 months old, but at this point her Moro reflex should be integrated. And if it's not, we want to address that and we want to do functional activities that get her head into different positions, specifically leaning back or going upside down. So an activity would be laying upside down over a small therapy ball, grabbing a toy mom would help her to sit up and throw the toy at a target and this would be a great activity to do as just a very simple obstacle course, follow it up with some heavy work, pushing, pulling some massage that she can do after this intense vestibular activity.
Rachel Harrington:In addition, with a Moro reflex, I'd want to see her doing some like sit down activities or some prone activities with her eyes below that middle line so looking down and facilitating like a little bit of head flexion so that way her brain doesn't feel like it needs to be in that like Moro reflex that startle reflex pattern and she can focus on putting cereal on pasta on like spaghetti noodles and stuff like that while she is sitting and focusing and safe and and working on like eyes down in Eisen midline. So that would be another thing to focus on like just mentioned getting the head into different positions. I would also say crawling would be another one, get down on the floor and crawl through tunnels and crawl through forts and and get that full body proprioceptive input because like Jessica mentions, she's most likely a vestibular seeker a proprioceptive seeker, so she wants more of that input which can be really regulating. Another thing to think about is vibration. I would grab Like a handheld massager and massage her arms and our legs that are back and let her hold it, especially before doing those messy play activities. Before like sit down focus activities that vibration can really increase body awareness but it can also be very regulating as well.
Jessica Hill:Since she is a picky eater. We also want to incorporate more oral motor activities into her play routine so blowing activities whether she's using a straw or not, she can blow cotton balls or pom poms across the floor. Use some painters tape to create a path that she can try to follow and below the pom pom along the path and into a target below the pom pom off the table into a cup. Try bubble mountain, she can start learning how to blow through the straw to create bubble mountain, she'll probably try to suck it up is my guest just because that's the natural reaction. So just teaching how to blow maybe she doesn't put her mouth on the straw, but she blows toward the straw. And that gets that practice of blowing during bubble mountain. But more oral motor activities during play time and before meal time to help her oral structures prepare for eating.
Rachel Harrington:I would also look into some traction and distraction of the joints since she likes her toes being pulled. Some of those full body joint compressions could be helpful, just giving her that proprioceptive input her joints need to either feel where they are or to like feel calmer, because that proprioception is very organizing to the nervous system. So like lightly, very lightly, you know starting with the head and pulling on the ears and massage and stretching of the joints and pulling and pushing, but just ever so softly can be really regulating.
Jessica Hill:And then we were also thinking about either the listening program or the safe and sound program. Those are two great options for our kiddos who are no tactile sensitive, and those can be incorporated into the daily routine. If she won't tolerate the headphones, you can start by playing the music on the computer for the whole room and practice using the headphones as she'll tolerate them.
Rachel Harrington:One other thing that could be beneficial is taking our infant and toddler sensory development course we share tons of sensory activities, even primitive reflex integration tools, and just supporting the nervous system from a young age. And because she is only 19 months. I'm honestly impressed that she's potty trained way to go. Are you jealous? Yes, because that's what I have to go through next. So I think I feel like she's very intuitive to her needs. And I feel like this is doing a really good job of figuring out what she needs and how to support each other. And I'm impressed.
Jessica Hill:Yeah. All right. If you found this helpful, let us know we like answering your questions. The more details you can provide the better. If you found this helpful, make sure you share it with someone else who will also find it helpful.
Rachel Harrington:I think we're finding that people who submit questions to us there are a lot of other people who have similar challenges or similar questions. So just know that when you are sharing your little situation with us, it's most likely going to help other people. So we appreciate you sharing with us and trusting us to give some advice. Definitely seek out occupational therapy in person if you are concerned and need more one on one help.
Jessica Hill:And with that, we will talk to you next time.
Rachel Harrington:Okay, bye. Thank you so much for listening to All Things Sensory by Harkla.
Jessica Hill:If you want more information on anything mentioned in the show, head over to Harkla.co/podcast to get the show notes.
Rachel Harrington:If you have any follow up questions the best place to ask those is in the comments on the show notes or message us on our Instagram account which is at heart club, underscore family or at all things sensory podcast. If you just search Harkla you'll find us there.
Jessica Hill:Like we mentioned before our podcast listeners get 10% off their first order at heart glad whether it's for one of our digital courses or one of our sensory swings, the discount code sensory will get you 10% off. That's s e n s o o r y.
Rachel Harrington:Head to Harkla.co/sensory to use that discount code right now.
Jessica Hill:We are so excited to work together to help create competent kids all over the world. While we make every effort to share correct information we're still learning.
Rachel Harrington:We will double check all of our facts but realize that medicine is a constantly changing science and art.
Jessica Hill:One doctor or therapist may have a different way of doing things from another.
Rachel Harrington:We are simply presenting our views and opinions on How to address common sensory challenges health related difficulties and what we have found to be beneficial that will be as evidence based as possible.
Jessica Hill:By listening to this podcast you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or your child.
Rachel Harrington:Consult your child's pediatrician or therapist for any medical issues that he or she may
Jessica Hill:This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast.
Rachel Harrington:Thanks so much for listening