Starting Sensory Therapy – A “Do It” Yourself Guide

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[fbshare]I am all for finding resources for parents to help them save money. This book–Starting Sensory Therapy: Fun Activities for the Home and Classroom! by Bonnie Arnwine–is one of these finds!

Bonnie presents over 140 activities and games that parents can implement for their child with sensory issues. Being a mother of a son with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Bonnie was aware that the activities needed to take a minimal amount of time and cost. She delivered! Most of the required items for the activities are things that most parents already have in their home.

After spending the first chapter describing SPD, therapy, and a sensory diet, Bonnie presents activities in the remaining chapters grouped by the sense that the activity will address. They are:

Tactile Activities – After activities and games, this chapter includes some easy snacks that do not require cooking, but does get your child involved.

Gross-Motor Activities- This chapter presents activities and games to address the vestibular and proprioceptive senses. There is a nice section addressing bilateral motor coordination.

Visual Activities – At the end of this chapter, Bonnie presents six games, books, and toys to work with your child’s visual skills.

Auditory Activities – Many children with sensory issues are very sensitive to loud noises. This section is geared towards them.

Activities with Smell – I found this chapter to be very interesting, because the vast majority of these activities were new to me.

Oral-Motor Activities – My daughter had received a lot of oral-motor therapy, so it was nice to see activities that parents could implement at home.

Fine-Motor Activities – Occupational Therapists often work on fine-motor skills. Here are some fun things that parents can do with their children.

After each activity is a section called “Extend It!” Bonnie was thinking like a true mother. When a child becomes bored with an activity, Bonnie presents other ways to use the same items before cleaning up. This is a great way to extend your child’s sensory time while not extending your clean up time!

My daughter has participated in a lot of occupational therapy throughout her life. Bonnie provides many activities that are new to me. Again, they are easy to implement with minimal set-up, but sound like they will be a lot of fun for children. This would be a good addition to the libraries of parents with children with SPD.

Giveaway

This book is available for one lucky reader to win! You can enter this giveaway up to two times. Here are the rules for entering:

1. Register for the new  S-O-S Step-by-Step FREE Standard Membership over in the right-hand column and gain access to the Step-by-Step online information; and/or
2. Sign up for the new and revised  S-O-S newsletter over in the right-hand column.

Please enter one comment here for registering with Step-by-Step and one comment for signing up for the newsletter. If you have already signed up for Step-by-Step and/or the Newsletter, you are already eligible to enter this contest! But please remember to enter a comment(s) and let me know.

This giveaway will end at 11:59 pm (PST) on May 31st. Random.org will be used to select a winner. Good luck with winning this wonderful opportunity!

Jennifer won this book!

I want to thank Future Horizons for providing me with this book for review. You can purchase this book and many others on sensory issues at Sensory World, a division of Future Horizons.