17 Amazing Ways to Give Your Kids Sensory Therapy at Home

Have you been there? You spent the last 3 years of your autistic child’s life driving him or her to therapy. Exhausted from a weekly trek to and from therapy, plus the rest of life, gets to be a bit much. The kids turn cranky and then you find yourself spent and weary.

And, before that Mom guilt kicks in, you DO love your child enough, even if you don’t go to weekly or bi-weekly therapies. But, there really is another way to help your child.

Why do autistic kids need sensory therapy anyway?

There are five main sensory systems in our bodies, which kids with sensory dysfunction need a jumpstart in. The Proprioceptive (body awareness), Vestibular (motor planning), Auditory, Visual and Tactile systems in our bodies help normal people regulate what information their brains take in.

You see, when we go to a loud place, a bright place, or even a crowded space, our minds filter out the annoying stimulation. We think about something else in loud places, we put on glasses when the light is too bright, or avoid the source of extreme light. We put up with a crowded room, knowing that this is only temporary, etc. Our brains filter out the excess.

But, when a special needs child or a sensory challenged child enters a place that seems too much, they do what appears to be an overreaction. Young children run, tantrum, hit and generally react negatively. Why, because their minds cannot filter out the excess. They become anxious, frustrated, even angry because they cannot find a place of peace.

Therapies help our kids overcome these sensory challenges and make them see they are not quite so scary. It teaches us as Moms how to help them and find solutions that actually work for our kids.

Our goal is to make our children happy, not terrify them and over-push them all the time. Success breeds success. Therapy helps that happen. Sensory therapy helps with:

• Reducing sensory defensiveness
• Enhancing verbal expression.
• Soothing and calming a child’s behavior
• Developing better social skills

What supplies do you need for therapy?

Overall, you don’t need expensive or elaborate equipment to provide your child with at-home therapy. Essentially, therapy is guided playtime, which you are probably already doing anyway.

You can find inexpensive items at Walmart, thrift stores, Target, Amazon or sporting goods stores. Since special needs motherhood is not a lucrative business ;-), price and function can fit into your budget with just a bit of ingenuity.

Supplies for therapy can include:

• A run of the mill swing set.
• The disc swings that hang over a tree branch.
• Therapy balls (I wouldn’t pay more than $15 for one!)
• A blow up ball bit for your child’s room (Balls and pit can generally run $50-60)
• Homemade weighted blankets or animals.
• Lighted toys from the dollar section of stores.
• Stickers galore from the dollar store or my favorite, Target dollar section!
• Craft supplies from Dollar Tree are awesome.
• A backyard trampoline if you can afford one.
• Get one of those blow-up swimming pools for summer
• A rocking chair from a thrift store or something.
• Beads and sequins
• Puzzles
• Kitchen supplies like spoons, bowls and other implements from any dollar store.

How do you know what to do?

Therapy ideas come easier than you think when you change how you view therapy. If your kid seeks out spinning, rocking, crashing, rolling or other crazy behaviors, then this is the place to start.

Since helping kids find a calming place in their bodies and minds is really what we seek, we help them find constructive ways to get that sensory input.

In at-home therapy, you give your child a creative outlet. If they are running around crazy spinning, then give them a swing set, or a spinning disk. If they seem to need to crash everywhere and bumping deliberately into objects, then give them things like play dough or heavy things to lift.

This sort of intentional planning helps kids to channel their energy constructively. Don’t tell them what you are doing, just make fun suggestions like, “Let’s play with this!” or “Why don’t we go do this?” That way, you get their cooperation and because their bodies and minds are seeking this out, they will usually run into the activity. 🙂

The key remains to trick your kids into therpay with the art of fun play. Forcing therapy on anyone does not open up anyone to learning. Look at some of these ideas to get you started.

Sensory therapy is broken up into these senses: proprioceptive, vestibular, visual, tactile and auditory.

What do you do?

In all honesty, therapy is only guided playtime. It might happen spontaneously or be planned, but the purpose is to gently nudge your child to overcome sensory defensiveness or to use sensory calming techniques. Either way, you teach your child to calm and self-soothe, not become hyper and defensive.

But, in order to do make it effective for your child, it must stay child-centered, not adult motivated. For example, if you have to push, discipline or yell at your kid to get cooperation, you just stepped off the therapy train and into discipline.

Things to keep in mind:

• Start with their idea of fun.
• Take baby steps and let them lead.
• Encourage targeted play and not random craziness
• Don’t call it therapy, call it playtime so it doesn’t seem like work.
• Make activities available but not required
• Have more than one activity in mind to help them, so you can try out what they want to do.

Proprioceptive activities

Proprioceptive sensory input is more about a child’s body in space. Does your child crash into objects and people a lot accidentally and on purpose? Do they seem to not watch where they are going? Well, these activities will help “wake up” that sensation.

Ball bouncing

Ball bouncing is not the same as bouncing a ball! Sit a obsessive autistic kid on a ball, especially one seeking proprioceptive input and they will bounce on it.

Balls help our kids get balance, which helps to strengthen them. Start with a peanut ball, or a small ball, that fits the physical ability of your child to practice everyday therapy.

Pillow crashing

Get plenty of large pillows (or make them yourself) to use in your living room or your child’s play space for everyday therapy. Throw them on the floor for a crash pad or a soft place to lay. Use them to create a sandwich game where you let your child lay on a soft spot and push on their back and chest to activate the proprioceptive response.

Ball pits

You have seen them online and even a few at Walmart. Depending on your child’s physical size, get a kiddies pool or a blow up ball pit, and buy a few packs of balls. Throw in some soft toys for a fun playtime experience that makes your kids forget you want them to overcome their sensory defensiveness!

Trampolines

Trampolines work great for kids who need that proprioceptive input, but can drive us crazy when other kids are overstimulated by them. Personal-sized trampolines can be found on Amazon and make a great therapy session.

Ensuring trampoline safety is of course, important. Getting the small trampolines with a safety bar helps kids with poorer balance. Safety nets and bumper pads work well on trampolines with for the back yard.

Carrying heavy objects

Games made from laundry baskets make great activities to help integrate motor planning. Place your child in the basket and pull them around with a string. Add heavy objects in the basket to pull around and create physical awareness.

We have even placed the family dog in the basket, which brings tons of giggles. Get a few baskets to promote play creativity in your child’s everyday therapy!

Homemade playdough

Provide sensory therapy with playdough or slime. There are tons of different playdough and slime recipes on Pinterest.

Choose one that won’t make your child too defensive. Then hand them kitchen tools to roll, cut and press the dough. This is good for finger dexterity and body awareness.

Vestibular activities

Do you have a few monkeys around your house? Well, kids who love to swing for long periods of time are the kids seeking vestibular input. This means that they need to re-center their idea of gravity.

While proprioceptive kids need a hug of sorts, the vestibular kid needs to swing around to find his or her gravity and sense of peace.

Swings

Get a swing that fits your child’s needs. My son’s first swinging was done on the porch swing. Later, he graduated to the chair swing on a typical swing set.

Swinging remains a constant favorite of many autistic people. If you don’t have a porch swing or a swing set, you can find other solutions for a swing set.

Find a handyman to build a special set for your child. Push insurance to pay for one to be built. This not only builds strength, but helps the vestibular system in your child as well.

Visual therapy activities

Lights, and visual discrimination remain an issue for kids like this. They may generally practice avoidance of visual activities. But, by adding successful and fun activities to their day, you can help them grow in this area.

You may also come to understand a bit better what they need to help them correct their vision or develop some visual coping techniques.

Word puzzles

Using word puzzle games like word search or search and find pages will help develop visual discrimination in a fun way. Search on Pinterest for Where’s The? pages you can download and print. You can even find free word searches and color pages to help out.

Color and paint by number

Look for a color by number worksheet and get your kids using their visual skills. My son used to be so obsessed with these pages and I never paid for one. Search for FREE color by number pages and you can print off hours of vision practice and entertainment.

Puzzles

Some special needs kids just love puzzles. Melissa and Doug puzzles encourage child dexterity and fine motor planning. They start with wooden puzzles and move up to floor puzzles with extra large pieces.

Puzzles help the obsessive compulsive side of special needs kids as well as visual spatial integration. Therapy with a side of fun goes much further than clinical therapy.

Cups, sticks, beads

This little “game” became my autistic son’s favorite when he was little. Give him a row of cups and let him organize sticks, straws, beads or even yarn balls in the cups. This develops visual acuity as well as fine motor skills.

Tactile Sensory Integration activities

You know you have a sensory dysfunction issue in your kid when he screams and meltdown over tags in his clothes…Sigh!

My son had one of those long before I even knew what it was. But, I worked around it and got him tagless clothing or cut out the tags of everything!

While you may not be able to undo every tactile defense that is driving you both crazy, you can help develop this skill in your child.

Art supplies

Most moms of sensory-defensive kids roll their eyes at this one. But, what if you give them paint brushes instead of finger paint. Hand them large markers which make writing much easier. Avoid the messy…AT FIRST.

Then, slowly give them finger-paint, glue, tape or whatever else that drives them crazy at first.

Ice chalk

Make your own ice chalk in an ice cube tray with corn starch and food coloring. Freeze the chalks and hand them out on hot days for play time on the porch.

The more tactile experiences they forget they are bothered by, the better!

Water play

For some kids, water becomes their friend, particularly in the summer. Let them wash the car, give them a kiddie pool with balls and pouring pitchers. Add suncreen and water, and fun therapy will happen.

Is it winter? Set up a “washing station” in the kitchen sink with a bucket, some soapy water and a few items.

Sand boxes

Some kids are sensory defensive with sand boxes, but perhaps you can try a different sand? If thyour child does not like the sand, try different types. Add moon sand to a smaller plastic box to start. Check Walmart for sand types and then add some cheap dollar toys for fun and play to start this therapy. Make some sand pies or create castles!

Sensory boxes

We all know these! Fill a box with sand, styrofoam or beans and bury objects for the kids to find. The key here is to make sure the ingredient you fill the box with doesn’t hit a negative reaction to your child’s sensory defensiveness. Choose dinosaurs, toy figurines, jewlery, whatever gets their interest to actually dig out the objects. Add a dollar shovel for those who don’t want to put in their hands and have fun!

Auditory activities

Defensiveness in the auditory realm shows up over loud noises and echoes. Some kids may even be bothered by piercing loud and consistent noises.

Teaching them coping techniques by putting their hands over their ears or using noise-cancelling headphones helps them tune out the noises that disturb them. Here are some ways to help with auditory sensory integration.

Play an instrument

Allow the child to toot on a horn or a recorder, playing around with different notes. While not necessarily music to the other person’s ears, it allows them to see how they can create their own noise.

Turn up the music and dance

Kids love to dance, but why not turn up the music a bit and dance to it. Who remembers if it is too loud? A little bit of their favorite music makes listening fun.

Toy microphones.

Whether you buy your kid a Karaoke player where they talk into the microphone, or use the toy microphones that vibrate when you talk into them. Either way, you give a kid to make the noise and the noise no longer seems so scary.

Make musical instruments

Creating your own drums and making your own music creates NOISE! Encouraging play in this way really helps kids master their own noise-making and cancels out the distress sounds can make.

Additional sensory activities you can use at home

Heavy work techniques

• Play with playdough
• Jump on a trampoline
• Bounce on a therapy ball
• Push or move heavy objects in a laundry basket or bag.
• Make a crash pad, like a bean bag
• Squeeze them with pillows
• Roll them up in blankets
• Stress balls or slime

Motion activities

• Swinging stops tantrums sometimes
• Rocking
• Merry-go-rounds
• Balance boards
• Ball bouncing or rocking on a therapy ball
• Bike riding
• Go outside to burn off energy instead of staying cooped up.

Fine motor activities

• Coloring
• Painting
• Crafting in general
• Picking up objects with kid tweezers
• Puzzles
• Cutting with scissors
• Completing dot to dots
• Tracing lines on pictures or letters

Visual activities

• Tracing lines
• Dot to dot activities
• Lacing cards
• Sensory bottles
• Word find pages
• Where’s the? activity pages and books
• Use toys with lights and sound to get visual focus and switch out of tantrums

Auditory activities

• Listen to nature sound recordings like the ocean or rainstorms
• Use noise-canceling headphones to stop tantrums
• Let them play their own music using drums or the piano
• Give them silence, because sometimes the noise gets in the way.
• Give them time to listen to their own music choices

Oral activities

• Pass out sugar-free popsicles
• Hand them a sugar-free lollipop
• Use gum to chew out frustrations
• Give chewies for sensory input
• Use electric toothbrushes to create sensory input in the mouth area

There are many therapy ideas

This list is only a small dent in the long list of ways we can reach our children. As we know, we can let them lead us with what they are comfortable with so that we can connect with them.

Leaving an autistic child so much to him or herself leaves them in their world and never allows them to come out. But, going into their world and gently nudging them out of it, leads to success for all.