The significance of sensory therapy in the rehabilitation of children

  Multisensory stimulation training applies multiple sensory stimuli (including auditory, visual, taste and smell, vestibular, tactile, temperature, etc.) through advanced computerized multimedia equipment to train infants and toddlers, integrating physical motor function, fine motor training, and balance and coordination function training, and it is an emerging training method. It can promote language development very well. It promotes the development of the senses and the nervous system, so that children can gain enhanced sensory experience and intellectual development.  Through interesting scientific experiments and targeted auditory, visual, olfactory, taste, tactile, temperature, weight, body degrees, movement and other comprehensive and systematic training, cultivating keen observation to stimulate the brain’s multiple potential, laying the foundation for logical thinking and mathematical development.  Sensory integration is the ability of the human body to effectively use its own sensory perceptions in the environment to obtain different sensory information (visual, auditory, olfactory, taste, touch, vestibular and proprioceptive) from the outside world and input it to the brain, which processes the input information and makes adaptive responses.  Sensory integration therapy mainly targets children with special needs (cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, autism, developmental delays) and focuses on vestibular balance training, tactile defense training, and proprioceptive training. The vestibular balance training can promote the neural organization of speech and language, vestibular balance and the ability to see and hear. Tactile defense training can adjust the sensitivity of the brain’s sensory nerves. The proprioceptive training can flex the body movement ability and sound the balanced development of left and right brain.  Studies have shown that children with cerebral palsy have obvious motor dysfunction and postural abnormalities, and can be accompanied by various degrees of visual, language, sensory, and perceptual impairments, which seriously hinder the development of voluntary movement and the ability to perceive the external environment. At the same time, due to personality and emotional disorders, they are not interested in regular rehabilitation training, express indifference, lack of initiative, and do not cooperate, which greatly affects the effect of rehabilitation. The treatment of cerebral palsy is based on movement therapy, which can better promote the child’s motor development. However, the treatment for more severe amblyopia, emotional disorders and perceptual disorders is lacking, and it cannot induce the initiative of children with severe cerebral palsy well, especially the children with severe perceptual disorders. Multisensory stimulation training can better induce active participation in children with cerebral palsy, and can adequately stimulate sensory perception and emotional adjustment, making up for the lack of motor therapy treatment and promoting the development of sensory perception in children with cerebral palsy while promoting their motor function.  Baloja found that visual stimulation training improves visual acuity in children with severe amblyopia, and the earlier the training, the more significant the effect. In the process of multi-sensory therapy, the transformation and movement of lights, images and phantom colors can better stimulate the child’s vision and promote the development of photoreceptor cells; as the visual acuity increases, it can gradually induce myopia in the child and make the eye muscles develop in a coordinated manner. At the same time, it can attract the child’s attention, make the head and neck follow the visual tracking and tension, promote the development of neck muscles, and eventually promote the child to raise his head.  In addition, because children with cerebral palsy can have sensory integration disorder, especially tactile disorder can lead to emotional disorders, making them reluctant to touch people or objects or bite their fingers, or crying and screaming and other behavioral problems, either sensory avoidance or seeking stimulation. In multisensory therapy, the use of bobble balls and brushes to stimulate the child’s skin can better promote tactile integration and thus improve the problem of emotional disorders.