April 15: Conditions for success

On your child's IPP, you will see a section titled "conditions for success". This is where a students' unique social/emotional, physical, cultural, and intellectual needs are considered in an effort to create optimal learning experiences for them at school. Many of our students' conditions for success include sensory considerations. In this blog post I'd like to discuss how you could consider your child's conditions for success at home from a sensory perspective in order to best prepare them for at-home learning.

First, I wanted to include the following video that describes some common sensory needs that children with autism may have and how to cope with them:

Some common strategies we incorporate at school to support our students' sensory needs are:

• offering noise-reducing headphones 
• offering frequent movement breaks (i.e. jumping on the trampoline, running, heavy work like carrying full backpacks, pushing/pulling a wagon)
• providing access to sensory play/tactile input (i.e. rice and sand sensory bins, water play)
• turning off bright classroom lights and using alternate lighting like lamps or coloured/twinkly lights
• offering quiet breaks after active periods (i.e. dimming the lights and playing quiet music after coming back from gym class) → if you want to use the same music videos we use at school for our quiet breaks, check out this link: https://www.symbaloo.com/shared/AAAABn9THxwAA42ADFXFWw==

You all probably know what sensory experiences your child is over- or under-sensitive to by now, but I will include the following sensory symptoms checklist in case you are interested in revisiting this: https://sensationalbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/SB-Sensory-Checklist-English-2017.pdf

I also wanted to include the following ideas for calming and alerting activities you could incorporate at home:

Here's another website with some great sensory ideas you can incorporate at home: https://inclusiveteach.com/2020/03/20/150-sensory-learning-ideas/?fbclid=IwAR2NoV_UQUTyYI4VVW09saGr0KeFpVLjbZupPYncznOx2dT4VnWRMKUdVd4

Finally, if you are interested in trying to make some of your own sensory bins at home (most of our students LOVE them), a quick Google search gives you TONS of ideas for cheap, easy bins you can make at home--often with materials you already have! Playing with sensory bins are often great independent activities that children can engage in without too much adult direction, so perhaps YOU can take a break! 😜