Chrysalis School

Sensory Avoiding: avoidance of touch, pressure, motion, lights, sounds, and other sensory input

Dyspraxia and Apraxia of Speech: problems with motor planning and grading body movements resulting in clumsiness and/or delayed and inconsistent language development

Attentional Challenges: orienting, engaging, and maintaining focus and attention

Auditory Processing Deficit: problems discriminating the start and end of discrete speech and ambient sounds.

Visual Processing Problems: resulting in difficulty making sense of visual stimuli, or transfer between visual fields such as a chalkboard and a piece of paper or a student's desk.

For most children sensory processing is automatic, managed by parts of the brain that operate below the conscious level. For children with sensory delays or insult to the sensory systems sensory integration is labored, occurring only with conscious effort or not at all. The result can be devastating to social and educational outcomes resulting in problems:

• developing a sense of self, the environment, and others
• revving up or down to sit still or activate for learning activities
• transitioning between activities
• planning and sequencing the steps in various activities
• selectively orienting, listening, and seeing
• maintaining attention and focus
• recalling and being able to operate on input
• engaging in creative or imaginative activity
• putting oneself in the perspective of another

Much work has been accomplished in the field of treating sensory processing dysfunction in the clinic. Unfortunately few classrooms are appropriate to children with sensory challenges. Bringing together the work of Jean Ayres (and others) with the work of Maria Montessori, perhaps the first educator to discuss sensory deprivation and education of the senses, we describe here what an appropriate sensory education should look, feel, smell, and taste like; what goals it might include, and how sensory-savvy teachers might support the work of sensory integrative therapists. An appropriate sensory education will facilitate development of sensory integration and support or follow up the work of occupation, vision, and other integrative therapies. The goals of a sensory education are straightforward and intended to further strengthen missing or weak processes through ongoing training of the various sensory systems as they pertain to the educational process, and within the educational environment. While special education has historically facilitated children, an appropriate sensory education, by contrast, supports and encourages natural development of the sensory systems as they pertain to learning.  

Movement 

A sensory education should address movement from both the perspective of freedom of movement and of directed movement.  

Freedom of Movement  It is developmentally inappropriate to the natural development of the vestibular and ocular-motor systems for young children under seven to sit with heads erect, doing central vision work for extended periods. Children with sensory delays need even more time before seated center vision work becomes the predominant learning format. Mats, beanbags, knee cushions, tunnels, and swings are all perfectly acceptable landscapes for learning when teachers are willing and understand the value in getting young minds at inverted angles from time to time. Floortime is an excellent format for providing close up one-on-one teacher-student time while encouraging movement and stretching out. ocular-motor development as well as peripheral or ambient vision can be supported simply and easily by letting children stand and move to a vertical writing surface rather than fixing the gaze at a teacher directed lesson.  

Directed Movement  Developmental Yoga, Brain Gym, Astronaut Training, or a similar educational kinesiology program, directed by teachers trained in these programs provides classroom relevant work with posture, stability, balance, breath, laterality, spatial awareness, motor planning, and ocular-motor, and developmental movement patterns, requisite to successful learning. Until movement is automatic and easy the child’s ‘learning-energy’ will be redirected to compensate for these missing pieces. Making the transition from a sensory-integration room to the classroom is easily facilitated when this educational piece is in place. Many students who need improvement in these functions can also benefit from listening therapy, which is easily facilitated in a classroom setting under the direction of a certified therapeutic listening program provider.  

Opportunities for Ambient and Focused Attention 

A good sensory education will include multiple daily opportunities for children to flow between ambient and focused attention, gaining experience at monitoring the sights and sounds of a safe and productive classroom using alternating, and divided attention and tuning-in with focused, sustained, and selective attention when details are presented. Cognitive support can be provided with programs like Pay Attention or other cognitive teacher-delivered programs, which give children a conscious experience of the flow between these attentional processes.  

Opportunities for Multiple Engagement with Teachers and Peers Many children with sensory challenges have trouble engaging with teachers and peers. A small, controlled, and cooperative social structure with a mix of one-on-one instruction, as well as small group and teacher directed lessons is tremendously powerful for encouraging students to engage with teachers and peers. Children who feel threatened or overwhelmed in larger large classes have an opportunity to learn to map space using the visual and auditory systems appropriately when the learning space is just a little smaller and the number of other children is more manageable. Children should be given ample opportunities to practice new skills alone and in teams, both in a formal and and game-like format.  

Homogenous Age-Grouping  By combining ages children can truly learn at their own pace, with more basic materials available without having to go off the resource rooms and special classes. This encourages children, rather than punishing them for their unique needs. Also, many children with special educational needs are gifted in some areas. With a wide range of curriculum available children can work well above their grade level in areas of the their ability.

Uninterrupted Work Periods Children need time to get organized, to visit with friends between lessons, and to think about what they might like to do next. With an uninterrupted three hour work period children can accomplish set their pace and move through their lessons without an adult imposed schedule getting in the way.

Integrated Curriculum In a Montessori classroom the interrelatedness of concepts and materials is taught. Math is taught in science lessons, when we measure bean plants, for instance. History is taught in the science area when we learn about the man's world Marie Curie lived in when she made her physics and chemistry discoveries.

Character Education  Grace, courtesy, and right action are no strangers to the Montessori student. These are modeled, taught directly, and reinforced in everything we do.

Errorless Learning  The didactic materials and the Montessori lessons guide children through accurate problem solving and skills development.

Learning Style Flexibility  Children learn in different ways. One child might be a predominantly visual learner, while his classmate learns best with her hands. The Montessori materials and lessons encourage children in the various modalities, informing the teacher along the way as to how best to instruct each learner.

One-to-One Student/Teacher Partnering  A first lesson is always 1:1 in our classroom. As learners gain experience and understanding of materials they may do the lesson independent of the teacher, and have their work checked afterward. Follow-up instruction is given as needed. Later children might partner with another learner to practice some lessons. This format allows precise instruction in first lessons, monitored learning in follow-up lessons, and supported practice.

Group Instruction Support  Group instruction is reinforcing, never punishing. The ability to learn in a group is critical to middle and high-school learners. This is very challenging skill for some learners. In a Montessori classroom we have a daily group lesson where children are encouraged to learn primarily with their eyes and ears. Children who need help with this important skill receive behavioral support as needed.

Applied Behavior Analysis 

We employ a behavior analytic approach to problem behaviors and learning challenges. Problem behaviors fulfill a function such as: attention, escape from undesired activities such as school work, and access to preferred items and activities. Analysis of behavior shines light on the function of behavior so that we can teach students acceptable alternative means for accomplishing what they want. Learning challenges are analyzed topographically and sequentially. Errorless learning is employed to facilitate rapid skill acquisition. Generalization of skills is encouraged through careful observation and application of support as needed.  

Imaginative Affect Based Play

DIR®/Floortime, developed by Stanley Greenspan, is an affect based intervention that follows the child’s natural emotions and interests to engage the child for learning interactions that enable the different parts of the mind and brain to work together and to build successively higher levels of social, emotional, and intellectual capacities.  

The Food Factor

The most current research in the field of nutrition and health psychology informs us that nutrition is an important variable in recovery from learning disabilities and common symptoms experienced by special needs children. We offer regular training classes for parents and include nutrition education in our curriculum.  

Integrated Curriculum 

In approaching any instructional content concepts, skills, and information should be carefully analyzed prior to lesson development so that the student is given everything he needs to see the big picture, fill that picture with information, and build the skills needed to use the information. Skills and information should be bolstered by contextual relevance whenever possible. When integrated in this way, the curriculum offers a perfect landscape for development of conceptual thought, practice in related skills, logical construction of informatikon, and deduction of relevance. 

The combination of these elements gives sensory delayed children a structure upon which to hang incoming stimuli and benefit from interrelated information presented at a big-picture or global level, followed by discrete detail, and skill practice. In a very real sense this is the mental application of ambient and focal switching mentioned earlier in this article; and it gives us a stage upon which to set development of imagination. Tying together lessons in literacy, math, and science, under the umbrella of cultural exploration, for instance, gives children with sensory challenges several ways to access information and allows them to build a network of relevance around details. 

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