Sensory Integration Program

Human beings have been growing and learning for many thousands of years. So why the focus on Sensory Integration Programs now? Why put so much attention to this very normal, well-established process? The reason is that for most of these thousands of years human beings have had demanding physical activity at the center of their lives and their survival. In the modern world with all our conveniences and passive entertainment we no longer need this kind of ongoing activity to survive; BUT we do need it to thrive. We still have the same neurological systems with the same needs that we have had since our beginnings. Activity, or movement, is - and always has been – the central way we educate our neurological wellbeing. At the base of this is the nourishment and integration of our senses. In the modern world particular attention needs to go to educating these senses.

We are used to thinking of the five senses as sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. However, all but one of these is actually the secondary layer of senses, often called the higher senses. Their full development depends on the development and integration of our base senses.  These base senses are the tactile or touch system, the vestibular or balance system, and proprioceptive or muscle/joint system.

Unless the base senses are well nourished and integrated, the higher senses will struggle with intake and processing, and remain unsure how to interpret the incoming sensation. This will leave the nervous system on alarm and in “survival” mode.
When a child – or any one else – cannot integrate the sensory information he is receiving he is overwhelmed. Imagine we are standing in a subway with a train approaching, smelling freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, while a mosquito buzzes overhead and the poison ivy rash on our legs is itching – and then someone asks us to write a job application. Sense your own reactions; then we may have some glimpse of the child’s experience. Of course he becomes agitated and shuts down or becomes hyper-reactive. Any of us would react this way if this was our moment to moment experience. It is our job as adults to help the child build a healthy foundation through the integration of his base senses.

Each of the three base systems plays a central role in telling us what is happening internally, where we are in space, and where the “I” ends and “other” begins. Together they give us our fundamental security. Since we are, wisely, programmed to put survival above all else, if these are not functioning well, both individually and in an integrated manner, we are at the mercy of our most instinctual selves – the reflexes. Like any automatic response, these are far more rigid and lack the freedom of response we gain as more advanced systems develop and integrate – in this case the base senses.

For example, the child who has to turn his book away and contort his body in order to write, may well be trying to overcome an infant reflex to turn away when a hand comes toward him. He cannot override this reaction because his base senses are not giving him the information he needs to be secure in world that is driven by choice and not reflex. Our ability to navigate life freely, and not be locked in patterns that do not serve us, depends on the health of these base systems – vestibular, proprioceptive, and tactile.

The nourishment and integration of these three systems is fundamental to our sense of wellbeing and our ability to function and learn throughout life. As the following chart shows, our ability to do complex tasks and to think at a high level depends on the integration of our senses.

Informed by the work of Jean Ayres, PhD – the founder of Sensory Integration Therapy - our Sensory Integration Program works with specific and targeted movement activities in the context of the developmental issues of the child. For example, we can look at the younger children who are focused on leaving home for adventure and returning safely. For them the specific movements would be accompanied by a verse about Mama Swan or the Peepers hatching form the mud. The imaginative world so alive in young children is nourished, as is their connection to nature – all the while their base senses are being fed.
This kind of work weaves right through our days. It might be in the focused physical activities of the morning, five minutes of targeted movement here and there, or having a child who misbehaves run around a track rather than sit in his seat or his room. In both the homeschool and classroom we work with specific movement and handwork activities and with the very natural opportunities to nourish and integrate the senses.

We might find opportunity shoveling snow from the walk, hauling desks into place, carting water to feed animals or set up painting, playing in the mud . . .  or even noisy rough-housing or the nightly pillow fight! 
In all we do in the Enki program, we look always to the integration of the base senses as the ground of learning and wellbeing for all.