Proprioception

Proprioception

Today’s blog post is inspired by Parallel London. A couple of weeks ago Jo Grace invited us to join her in The Sensory Project’s tent at Parallel London. Hopefully as you are reading this we are either having a great time walking the sensory 1K taking in all of the sensory experiences or meeting lots of great people in the sensory tent and delivering proprioceptive experiences.

Many people think of the 5 senses, however being a PMLD teacher one of the first concepts you are introduced to are the 7 senses and the need to involve sensory stimulation in your teaching. Proprioception is our sense of body awareness, it is the understanding of where our body parts are and how they are moving in co-ordination with each other. If you close your eyes and think of your feet you can locate them, feel them and have a understanding of where they are. Children with PMLD often do not have this ability. Many are in wheelchairs and at school have trays across them to work from. Flo always mentions how important it is to help our children realise they have legs and feet beyond their trays!

Hannah and I believe in allowing a world beyond their wheelchairs. We enable as many opportunities as possible to learn on the floor or in a range of positions during the day which is essential for good postural care but also body awareness. If you are doing something messy, allow the chance for them to get their feet stuck in too.

Our brain receives messages from receptors around the body. Our proprioceptive senses gather information from our muscles, tendons (where the muscles attach to the bone), ligaments, joint capsules (the protective lining of each joint) and connective tissue as well as receptors in the skin (Building bridges through sensory integration, 2015).

Difficulties with processing proprioceptive information result in a lack of body awareness which affects coordination and movement. Some people with PMLD require more information to help them understand where there body is, this is also the case for some people with autism, they may walk leaning against the walls for information of their body alignment and position. Some people with PMLD may have proprioceptive sensory defensiveness and may be overstimulated by position or movement changes as the proprioceptive sense is very closely linked to vestibular, our sense of balance.

Activities to develop proprioception

Today Hannah and I have two different activities with us. The first is a piece of stretchy lycra material. By wrapping the material around a child they are becoming aware of their body. Another resource we have is wind. We have a range of materials including the stretchy lycra and various hand held fans to create wind across the body; over the face, down the arms and legs to provide an awareness of the body.

Another technique we use in school is TACPAC. TAC PAC is a programme that combines music and touch. TAC PAC involves using different materials and movements across the body to music. For example you may listen to drumming music and gently tap the child’s legs with chop sticks. You may listen to floaty music and stroke a feather duster up and down the child’s arms. This create a whole body awareness. TAC PAC is designed on a 1:1 basis to also develop trust and interaction between the adult and the child. TAC PAC should be repeated. We do a TAC PAC 2/3 times a week for a term. TAC PAC has a website and you can buy the programmes online as well as download their new app. Hannah and I also make our own dependent on the topic. We have just made one for doctor using a range of different materials. Hannah’s boyfriend is currently making the music accompaniment for us! You can find our version of a doctor themed TAC PAC here on our TES page- this now includes music. All you need to do is source the items.

Hannah has also developed her own musical story massage. She used Flo’s story massage and the book Once Upon a Touch as inspiration. Appropriate massage is another great way to develop body awareness. Hannah adds music to her story to increase anticipation. Do the children anticipate the parts of the story and can they show a preference to the massage movements. It is another great way to build a strong, trusting relationship between a child and adult to enable interaction. One of her children has a favourite part, the sprinkle movement which is a twinkling with your fingers across the back. It appeared numerous times throughout Hannah’s Alice in Wonderland story ‘look rabbit follow’. She would lift her head up, shake it side to side and squeal. After a couple of weeks, doing the story every day she was beginning to anticipate that something was coming that she was going to enjoy. She also reacted to the cue music by lifting her head. Hannah found this was the most she had ever responded to an activity all year. So massage has many benefits as well as proprioceptive.

We will be sharing our experiences at Parallel in future posts. On Monday PMLDchat are hosting their monthly twitter chats, the topic this time is Parallel. If you want to know more about the event or what we got up to, follow @PMLDchat and be on twitter at 8pm. Please get involved and don’t forget to use the hashtag #PMLDchat

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/doctor-tacpac-now-with-music-11712014

http://tacpac.co.uk/