Tactical Childrens Activities | Jungle Gym World Pretoria

SENSORY INTEGRATIVE DYSFUNCTION

Tactile activities (we use the tactile table available from Pick'n Pay, Game and Makro. It is a round plastic bowl in a square "table" exactly the right height for toddlers from 9 months and older)

Use instant pudding in a water bowl for babies and toddlers to play and use as finger-paint;

Mix mealie-rice, bird seed or mealie-meal with small toys in a bowl and let the children look and play with the toys in the bowl;

Take shaving cream and spray it on a window pane and encourage the children to make pictures;

Put hair gel in the sturdy thick "zip lock" plastic bags. Close it and let the children play on the table with it. You can mix glitter into the hair gel;

Allow babies and toddlers to crawl and walk barefoot on the lawn as early as possible. Plan to have surfaces with different textures in the play room;

A water table with different toys adding soap for bubbles (a touch defensive toddler often start just by putting fingers on the bubbles to burst them). Do not add colouring in the beginning;

Encourage parents to do baking with their children, making cookies or bread where the dough must be kneaded and rolled. Plan these types of baking activities for toddlers. It does not matter if they eat most of the dough. The objective is to encourage tactile exploration;

While reading a story let the touch defensive child sit next to you and "brush" him/her with a brush on the back. Start with a soft brush and make it harder as you progress. Sometimes this procedure will have to be done in private since some children dislike this so much that they will kick and scream to avoid it;

Play a game by which you mix and bake a cake on a child's back. Break the eggs, add flour, stir and beat the mixture and count how many cakes you make while the child must guess the number;

Write with your finger on a child's back or touch and let them guess with which hand. The answer is not really important, it is the touching and the fact that it is a game;

Make pictures with different textures like sandpaper, silky material, wool, wood, plastic carpet pieces and sand. Tell a story and take the child's hand to feel the different textures while you are telling the story;

Add sand or mealie-meal to finger paint;

Hide small toys in play dough and let the children look for them;

Do these activities with all the children in your group. It is beneficial to all and prevents the tactile defensive child from feeling victimised.

Conclusion

Teachers and parents should know that in a way we must all read and increase our knowledge about factors that make it difficult for children to progress and become what their capabilities can allow them to become. At the Association office, we are worried about many teachers who tell us about "impossible" children, some of whom sometimes already attend the fourth or fifth school, because neither their parents nor the teachers know how to handle them and what to do. Most children do not have these problems that we described. Miraculously they blossom and become shining examples of children's resilience and capabilities to extract the most out of their life-world. Some children cannot do it on their own. We cannot make children responsible for their inabilities, but what we need to do is to read, find information, talk to parents, look at websites and do whatever is possible to help a child. This article was not written by a physiotherapist or an occupational therapist, but it was written by a concerned preschool specialist - that which we all are. We can change the future for children and parents. We can only do it if we empower ourselves with knowledge, certainly, but also with immeasurable compassion for children. Contact your physiotherapist or the Physiotherapist Association of South Africa for more information.

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