Connecting Mind & Body
Our strong education and communication programs are further strengthened by our understanding of sensory integration dysfunction and movement difficulties and the measures we take to address them.
“A large part of [a child’s] capacity for learning is the ability to integrate sensory information.”
A. Jean Ayeres, 2005
People with disabilities, especially those with autism, experience sensory integration dysfunction of various degrees and have a difficult time managing their bodies.
Try it at home:
Try to write a long word in capital letters with your dominant hand while turning the foot on the corresponding side of your body anti-clockwise. If your dominant hand is the right then you should be rotating your right foot. Not as easy as you expected?
You will be familiar with some of these senses:
The five senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste which bring information from the external world into your brain
The proprioceptive sense which brings the messages from the muscles and joints to the brain
The vestibular sense works with vision and a sense of body position to trigger automatic responses by our head, trunk, arms, legs and feet to maintain balance as we maneuver through space (A. Jean Ayeres, 2005)
Try it at home:
The vestibular system is what allows you to continue to focus your sight as you move your head from side to side fast.
The proprioceptive and vestibular senses bring information from the internal world of the body into the brain and are considered to be foundation senses. All of these senses must coordinate for optimum functioning.
At E.A.S.E, we work on addressing issues arising from sensory integration dysfunction by stimulating these senses in a controlled manner using activities such as exercise, dance and yoga.
Recognizing that our students have reasons such as sensory issues or movement difficulties for the unusual “behaviors” they exhibit often helps us to enable our students to manage themselves better. We work with the student to help them function better.