Sensory Activities Can Be a Valuable Learning Tool for Autistic Students

By William Stanton, OTR/L                                                                            
                                                                        
[This column was published in the West Springfield Republican on December 28, 2023.]

Our five senses – taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing – connect us to our environment and enrich our lives. For students with autism, activities that incorporate these senses can provide a valuable entry point for learning new skills because they can be highly motivating and rewarding. 

In addition to the well-known five senses, we also have other senses that help us navigate and experience our world. These include proprioception, our ability to know where our body parts are in space; vestibular sense tells us when we are moving and provides us with our sense of balance; and interoception helps us know our internal states such as when we are hungry or need to use the bathroom.

Every person has a different sensory profile. We all have strengths and weakness and preferences. We all know what kind of touch we like and don’t like. Some of us love roller coasters and some of us hate them. Many of us don’t notice a particular sound that drives someone else crazy. It is important for teachers to know their students’ preferences so they can avoid the things that are aversive to them and incorporate things that are motivating into the learning process. 

At the May Center School for Autism and Developmental Disabilities in Chicopee, Mass., I built a sensory room that has served as an entry point for teaching a number of functional and academic skills. For example, the room has a series of hexagon lights arranged so that students can create every letter of the alphabet by touching the center of each hexagon to cause it to light up. This way of shaping and creating the letters allows students working on the foundational concepts of letter sounds and letter formation to learn in a new way that is more immersive and exciting than writing out worksheets.

In our sensory room, we also have a six-foot bubble tube that lights up, changes colors, and has plastic fish floating within it, supported by a platform base. One student who uses a wheelchair has been so motivated by the bubble tube that she is trying to pull herself up to stand and access it. The motivation of a highly preferred sensory item or activity can inspire our children to try new things.

Because these sensory items and activities can be motivating, they can also serve as a source of reinforcement, or reward. We have some students who complete schoolwork and then gain access to the sensory room. The sensory room has become a preferred choice for some students who select it as their chosen reward for completing tasks.   

Some students do well with accessing sensory activities as an antecedent strategy, or a strategy used before the occurrence of a challenging behavior. For example, consider a child who has trouble around the same time every day and the behavior has been identified as being sensory in nature. A behavior specialist may recommend teaching the student to ask for preferred sensory items as a coping mechanism before that time of the day. 

Sensory activities also can have a powerful connection to memory. Smell has been well established as a powerful memory-provoker. Incorporating smell into a lesson plan can help build stronger connections to concepts – for example, by using scented Play-Doh to create and learn about shapes, or by calling attention to the different smells during cooking activities. Establishing these connections in the moment and using those scents to recall the information later can help promote long-term learning. 

Tapping into children’s senses can be an important tool in a teacher’s toolbox, oftentimes
improving the learning experience for the student. Finding a productive way to incorporate sensory activities into the classroom experience may be what is  needed to empower the learner and teacher alike. With this tool in our toolbox, we can teach skills in a new and memorable way and inspire our students to reach new heights. 

            
William Stanton, OTR/L, is an Occupational Therapist at the May Center School for Autism and Developmental Disabilities in Chicopee, Mass. He can be contacted at wstanton@mayinstitute.org.

May Institute is a nonprofit organization that is a national leader in the field of applied behavior analysis and evidence-based interventions, serving autistic individuals and individuals with other developmental disabilities, brain injury, neurobehavioral disorders, and other special needs. Founded nearly 70 years ago, we provide a wide range of exceptional educational and rehabilitative services across the lifespan. May Institute operates five schools for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities, including one in Chicopee, Mass. For more information, call 800.778.7601 or visit www.mayinstitute.org.