What is a Sensory Diet?
This does not actually involve food! Sometimes it can, but a “diet” is referring to providing sensory experiences throughout the child’s day, the same way you eat 3-5 meals a day to keep you full and satiated. The “sensory diet” provides sensory input to help keep your child calm, regulated, and ready to learn/participate in their daily routines. This will also help to prevent difficult behaviors before they happen.
Sensory Diets do the following:
-Include tactile, auditory, visual, olfactory, proprioceptive, vestibular, and interoceptive input
-Designed and prescribed by an OT to meet an individual child’s specific sensory needs
-Important to implement across settings (at home, in school)
Most people use a sensory diet subconsciously. It can be in the form of fidgeting with pen during meetings, going for a walk in the afternoon to stay alert, chewing gum throughout the day to keep you busy.
Why are sensory diets important?
They can help your child get into a “just right” state. In order for your child to participate best in their daily routine they need to be operating in a state that meets their needs in just the right way. Not too overwhelmed, but also not under aroused (tired, bored).
Helps child to receive the input they are seeking
Increases regulation/attention
Without sensory input throughout day children may struggle to:
Demonstrate appropriate behaviors
Remain alert/attend to activities
Keep themselves regulated/in controlHelps child get into a “just right” state
Helps child to receive the input they are seeking
Increases regulation/attention
Without sensory input throughout day children may struggle to:
Demonstrate appropriate behaviors
Remain alert/attend to activities
Keep themselves regulated/in control
OT’s Role in a Sensory Diet
Identify areas of difficulty and create interventions to promote adaptive behaviors/self-regulation skills
OT’s create individualized interventions that target occupational engagement in developmental areas
Play, sleep, ADLs (activities of daily living), mealtime routines, socialization
OT’s teach children to engage in meaningful activities (occupations) in purposeful way
Modify environments (home, school) and make recommendations to promote success in dto promote adaptive behaviors/self-regulation skills
Important Points to Consider
You Should not wait until the child is overstimulated to introduce sensory input!
Similar to pain medication, after you have a procedure or surgery your doctor tells you to take your pain meds on a specific schedule (ex.every 3-4 hours) in order to PREVENT pain, instead of taking meds when you feel pain, at which point it will then take another 45 min-hour for the pain meds to start working again.
Sensory diets are the same and should be used as a kind of “medication” for your child to be proactive, not reactive, to help your child get their needs met and be able to function at their peak performance level.
To be effective:
Frequent doses of specific input should be as part of the daily routine
Sensory activities should be used to facilitate, do not force activities
Purpose of sensory diet is to maintain “ready state” not to put to sleep or cause hyperactivity
Respect child’s autonomy/maintain trust with child – if child requests “stop,” stop activity immediately
Be cautious of signs of undesirable response:
Sweating
Nausea
Increased/decreased breathing
Persistent giggling
Hyperactivity beyond normal
Significant increase/decrease in muscle tone
Tremor
If these signs occur during treatment, stop immediately and let OT know!
Below is an example of what a sensory diet may look like. You should consult with an OT to create a sensory diet, but bits and pieces can be tried by you as the parent to see what works for your child.
In the Printables tab, I have a couple different resource handouts that have lists of various activities to address the needs of all the sensory systems. You can choose various activities to try and add to your sensory diet with your child from those handouts.