Should your special needs child have a sensory diet? Is a sensory diet anything like a gluten free diet? Will it add hundreds of extra dollars to the grocery bill each month? Actually, a sensory diet has nothing to do with food at all. So don’t head over to the natural food store yet, save your gas. It is an exercise, activity, and play program designed for an individual child with sensory processing issues. The Sensory Diet is usually designed by your child’s occupational therapist for homework between therapy sessions. Having the child practice daily, instead of just during therapy, allows for better success of the therapy. The therapist personalizes a sensory diet for each child based on parental input and personal, and team observations. I read about it in “The Sensory Processing Disorder Answer Book,” that I reviewed a few weeks ago. Here is the link to the review.
What will a sensory diet do for my child who has special needs and sensory processing issues? According to the book, it will help to engage a child and increase activity in an under aroused child. For the highly excitable or escalating child it should help to calm the child. Some children spend too much time reading and not enough time running or jumping. Some children are always running and jumping and don’t spend anytime in quiet play. The sensory diet is supposed to offer each child a balanced course of activity throughout the day. By having a child engage in a wide range of activities each day, the child can learn coping mechanisms and self-regulation strategies to use in life. This should help the child learn to behave more normally in new or arousing situations.

What are some of the homework activities that they assign to a child with a sensory processing disorder? The activities include rolling, spinning, jumping on a trampoline, pillow crashing, Play-Doh, therapeutic CDs, and various ball activities. All children do these things occasionally. Of course, your child may do some of these things everyday. That is where the well-rounded diet comes in. With the sensory diet, your child would do the items on his or her list each day around the same time.



Photo Credit: 2008 Carrie Gellin,Sourcebooks, Inc.Publicity Department.
Photo Credit: 2008 Julia Fuller.