Sensory Play - Center for Child Counseling (2024)

FAQs

How does sensory play help problem-solving skills? ›

Through play, toddlers can practice interpreting the world using their senses to solve small challenges such as building a block tower that doesn't fall or sorting items with different shapes or colors. As they develop a knack for solving minor problems, they enhance their ability to solve problems of great difficulty.

Supporting brain development, enhancing memory, complex tasks and problem solving. Developing fine motor skills through tactile play (useful when children want to hold a pen or use scissors for example). Supporting language development, communication and social skills. Enhancing memory and observational skills.

Play therapy is to children what counseling is to adults. Play therapy utilizes play, children's natural medium of expression, to help them express their feelings more easily through toys instead of words.

Allowing children to control their sensory experiences empowers them to manage their emotions and reactions. Exploration: Sensory play provides a safe space for exploration. Children can investigate new textures, smells, and sounds, building their curiosity and expanding their understanding of the world.

Sensory play encourages learning through exploration, curiosity, problem solving and creativity. It helps to build nerve connections in the brain and encourages the development of language and motor skills.

Appropriate sensory stimulation increases children's concentration and focus, helping them to self-occupy. It can also develop muscle tone and is inclusive because there are no right or wrong ways of playing, appealing to children with different learning styles and abilities.

Engaging children with autism in sensory activities is beneficial in several ways, as it can help with: Stimulating the brain, creating neutral pathways and improving sensory processing systems. Improving social skills such as communication and co-operation. Improving co-ordination, as well as fine/gross motor skills.

In order to learn, a child must be able to pay attention to a variety of different stimuli whilst filtering out irrelevant stimuli. In order to maintain attention they must be in a Calm-Alert state. This can prove difficult for many children due to underlying sensory sensitivities, anxieties and/or frustrations.

Play has three basic functions: cognitive and motor development and emotional resolutions. Through the play therapy process the children create play that resembles emotional experiences they are struggling with internally. These are usually experiences they are unable to express verbally.

What are the five sensory plays? ›

From birth children engage with and learn about the environment around them by interacting with the world through their senses. From sight to sound, touch, taste and smell, children use all five to help them make sense as they explore, investigate, play and learn.

Sensory play is stimulating for babies and toddlers of all ages, and it's never too early to get started. All you have to do is set the stage — and let your little one delve in on her own terms.

Use of sensory play promotes the Prime areas of Learning and Development listed within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS); communication and language, physical development, and personal, social, and emotional development.

Imaginative play is effective at fostering problem-solving skills. Problem solving is rarely a linear way of thinking and approaching a problem with a creative mindset allows you to step back and observe the issue from all angles, determining the best approach based on all the factors.

Sensory play often involves building fine motor skills by exploring toys and other objects using pinching, pouring, and lacing movements. Invite your child to use these skills every day. You can do a craft, invite them to help with dinner, or work with them on buttoning a sweater onto a stuffed bear.

When children manipulate objects or use manipulatives, they engage their tactile senses, which helps them develop a concrete understanding of abstract mathematical concepts. For instance, using blocks or counters to represent numbers and operations can make math more tangible and accessible to young learners.

Educational toys will usually enhance a child's learning through developing their logic and problem solving skills, encouraging communication skills, refining motor skills and nurturing their creativity.