SENSORY LEARNING PROGRAM

What is the Sensory Learning Program?

The Sensory Learning Program is a multi-sensory approach to developmental learning that simultaneously stimulates the visual, auditory and vestibular systems with light, sound and motion. The Program challenges the primary sensory systems to work together and better adapt to multi-sensory input, the foundation of all sensory processing. Improvements often result in: speech, perception, understanding, social interaction, gross and fine motor, coordination, and ability to learn.

The Program is a 30-day intervention. It consists of one - 1 hour, or two - 30 minute sessions each day for 12 consecutive days at our center. Each session is an individual sensory experience simultaneously engaging visual, auditory, and vestibular systems to work in an integrated way. The repetitive sensory activation of each session builds on the session before. After 12 days of sessions, the individual returns home with a portable light instrument to continue the program with a 20 minute session each morning and evening for the next 18 days.

Preceding the intervention, an evaluation is made in which a listening profile and visual field are taken. These "perceptions maps" help provide a baseline that is used during the course of the Program to track improvement in sensory processing.

The Sensory Learning System Equipment

The state-of-the-art equipment used in the Sensory Learning Program has been carefully developed and refined over the last 15 years. It has three major components:

Trochoidal Motion Table with Adaptive Positioning Equipment – The Trochoidal Motion Table slowly rises and lowers in a circular pattern to provide vestibular stimulation for the participant. The table surface can also be rotated 90 degrees to provide for a full range of stimulation challenging both the horizontal and midline axis.

Computer Light Instrument – This fully computerized instrument is programmed with roughly 100 color sequences. The unique colors cycle from dim to bright at pre-programmed intervals during the Program.

Acoustic Training Suite – This component is responsible for delivering the unique auditory component of the intervention.

Candidates of the Sensory Learning Program

Autism
Children on the autism spectrum crave sensory stimulation. The repetitive sensory activation of the Sensory Learning Program can help bring forward developmental patterns that have been delayed.

Non-Verbal Language Disorder / Asperger's Syndrome
When verbal skills are strong, visual-vestibular and spatial reasoning skills can improve with the Sensory Learning Program because both the visual and vestibular systems are being engaged simultaneously in the sessions.

Acquired Brain Injury
When an adolescent or adult acquires a brain injury, the brainstem area, which receives primary sensory messages often, loses its ability to process and integrate those messages effectively. The individual often becomes hyper-vigilant, responding to all sensory impressions. Repetitive sensory activation in the sessions can help the individual relearn to process and integrate sensory input.

Developmental Delays
Sensory stimulation naturally brings forth developmental patterns. When there are delays, repetitive, unique sensory stimulation can allow developmental milestones to emerge.

Birth Trauma
Even in a newborn, when the nervous system experiences physical trauma the brain begins to function as if it has an acquired brain injury. The child responds to ordinary sensory information as though the sensory messages are signaling a trauma. When the child begins to process sensory information in a safe environment during the Sensory Learning Program, he/she integrates sensory information more efficiently. The child responds and relates to his/her environment in a more typical way.

Behavior Problems
Children may try to cope or compensate when sensory skills are difficult or impossible for them to perform. They cannot regulate sensory input or sensory activity levels due to sensory overwhelm and the accompanying emotional frustration. Many behavior problems result because sensory messages are not processed and integrated accurately and efficiently. Sensory skills are learned, and when the brain reorganizes to process and integrate sensory messages more efficiently and accurately, sensory arousal in the environment produces more natural behavioral responses.

ADD / ADHD
An individual’s proficiency to attend to a task depends on his/her ability to regulate sensory input and sensory activity levels. Often children who have difficulty with sensory skills exhibit behaviors that earn them these labels. Many sensory messages process and integrate initially in the brainstem area. This area must be functioning in an organized way to arouse the individual to attend adeptly.

Learning Enhancement
Exercising the sensory systems simultaneously allows people to enhance their ability to multi-task and perform multi-sensory activities more efficiently and effortlessly. Sensory skills can become enhanced and can promote easier learning and improved performance.

Benefits of the Sensory Learning Program

• Foundational Intervention: The Sensory Learning Program works on the ground-level sensory perception of the child which is where the process of learning begins and it thus often improves the effectiveness of other therapies that follow such as OT, PT, ABA, and Speech Therapy.

• Minimal Motivation Required: Minimal motivation is required because children are engaged by the multi-sensory input of the Sensory Learning Program.

• Input versus Output: The Sensory Learning Program works on an elemental level from the "bottom-up", challenging the sensory systems to adapt to multi-sensory input, as opposed to working from the "top-down", providing complex directions the child is expected to execute or perform.

• Improved Sensory Connections: Sensory connections are the foundation for all sensory processing. Because the Sensory Learning Program focuses on improving sensory connections, we believe the Sensory Learning Program should be one of the first interventions explored for individuals with sensory dysfunction and integration challenges.

For more information please visit: www.SensoryLearning.com or www.sensorylrng.com