Sensory Diet

We are figuring out Amelia's sensory diet. Unlike Jennie Craig or Weight Watchers, we don't have to count points or worry about calories. A sensory diet is the external stimuli that Amelia receives through her sense of touch, vision, taste, hearing and smell. It helps her calm her nervous system, helps her focus, helps her with spatial awareness, i.e. know where her limbs are in space --- where they begin, where they end, how she can move them around to do what she wants, and that they belong to her.

Amelia lost the third trimester in the womb. Because she never grew big enough, she did not have the opportunity to stretch out and get the resistance of her limbs, joints and muscles pressing outward on the boundaries of the uterus -- proprioceptive input. She also did not have the trimester when babies are the most active and are turning this way and that -- this is input the brain receives for their vestibular system. These are the things the brain is learning in the last three months that Amelia did not get.

For her brain to receive these signals, we have to offer her a diet of different sensory stimulus. The effects are cumulative and through this the brain can be rewired and retrained.

This web page has a really good overview of the types of activities that each age group should seek to help create a sensory diet.

So many of these things are activities that we discovered that Amelia really enjoyed before we realized they were therapeutic. Swinging, turning her upside down, bouncing.

One of the most amazing things I have seen is when the OT took a surgical scrub brush and firmly stroked it on the palms and backs of her hands and then using long firm strokes on the her arms. Amelia was kind of crazy before that. But as soon as the OT started using the brush on her she calmed down. When the OT was finished, she calmly, steadily walked over to a toy, sat down, focused on it and started playing with it purposefully for several minutes.

The OT is discovering that too many items in Amelia's visual field is too overwhelming for her, so it is good that I removed all of her toys out of the room where we spend the most time. We rotate activities for Amelia that involve gross motor like climbing and walking and then give her a break to play with a toy or instruct her with some fine motor activities. If she gets too crazy where she starts flailing her arms, I am to brush her hands and arms. I can also do her legs, feet and back if tolerated. It calms her and gets her to focus quickly.

Some other things the therapist is doing is giving her input to her joints by tying a spandex piece of materials around her thighs and waist and hanging in her upside down like a wheel barrow, so that she has to hold her weight on the floor through her arms. This gives her input to her arms and her hips. In doing so, the joints and muscles wake up and do what they are supposed to do. Her brain doesn't know to give her muscles and joints these signals, so she has to get the input externally.


Touch: Feeling Emily the Elephant's Trunk. We also have her put her hands in beans and play with a koosh ball.


Playing with my OTs, Miss Theresa and her grad student, Miss Stacey.


Crawling through the tunnel helps strengthen her hips.


Climbing over bean bags and making her way up the incline. Strengthens her core and hips.


Todd bought her this Sit n Spin within the last couple months and I thought it was too advanced for her. Wrong! After one day she was starting to figure out how to turn on it without my assistance. This is also great for her vestibular system.


At home eating turkey bacon. Nom nom nom. Well wearing it mostly, but she is tasting it a bit. Different textures of food both smooth and crunchy are other sensory inputs that can help.

All this hip strengthening is really helping her climbing skills. On Saturday morning she climbed into our bed! She put her foot on the side rail and climbed up. She acted like she had done it about a hundred times before. No hesitation, just did it. Subsequent attempts have not been as successful. But it is good to know she is figuring out that climbing the stairs on the slide can be translated into other things. She climbed up on a rocking chair Aunt Pat's house on Thursday and Wednesday night she climbed up on a chest I had in front of a window and was trying to climb onto the window sill! So exciting...and dangerous!