The Sensory Detective Curriculum: Discovering Sensory Processing and How It Supports Attention, Focus and Regulation Skills - Softcover

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Paula Aquilla, author of Building Bridges through Sensory Integration lives in Toronto. She is an occupational therapist and an osteopathic manual practitioner. She works with adults and children in clinical, educational, home, and community-based settings. She founded the YES I CAN! INTEGRATED NURSERY SCHOOL, YES I CAN! SUMMER CAMP and the I LOVE MY BABY PROGRAM in Toronto and served as the director for six years. Paula was also the founding executive director of GIANT STEPS, a private school for children with autism at the Toronto location. She runs a private practice serving children with special needs and their families. Paula has given many workshops on the use of sensory integration internationally She created the occupational therapy program at Aptus Treatment Centers where she continues to consult. Her practice is an approved placement for students from the University of Toronto's occupational therapy department, where Paula is also a guest lecturer. She is a professor at the Canadian College of Osteopathy, and is also a consultant to the MacMaster University Occupational Therapy students. Paula brings warmth and enthusiasm to her work with children. Alexi Edelstein is an occupational therapist at the Aquilla Occupational Therapy Services. She and her family live in Toronto, Canada. Paula Riczker is an occupational therapist at the Aquilla Occupational Therapy Services. She and her family live in Toronto, Canada.

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Our brain can put all this information together to give us information about everything; what is happening in our bodies and what is happening in the environment. It’s absolutely marvelous! When we go outside for recess, we can feel our clothing as we move down the stairs toward the doors to the playground. We can keep our balance on the stairs and we know the position of our body, which enables us to turn around corners and make it through the doorway. Once we are outside, we scan the playground, using our vision and auditory systems and find our friends who are organizing a game of baseball. We switch from walking to running. We don’t fall because our vestibular and proprioception systems are working together to give us a constant flow of the information we need to stay upright. We may be biting into an apple and tasting that yummy goodness at the same time! We make it to our friends and begin to play.

Sensory processing happens in a part of our central nervous system called a brain stem. The brain stem is like a relay station; all the information is carried to the brain stem through individual sensory nerves. The information from all the senses gets filtered in the brain stem. Important information comes into focus and unimportant information is discarded. The brain stem works with another system called the limbic system, our emotional system, to determine what is important to pay attention to and what to ignore in that moment. For example, when we are going down the stairs, information from our vestibular, proprioceptive, tactile and visual systems come to the forefront to ensure that we don’t fall. We don’t pay as much attention to our olfactory or gustatory systems in this task. However, on pizza day, when we are eating a delicious slice of hot cheesy pizza, our brain pays more attention to our olfactory and gustatory systems so that we can enjoy the taste of the pizza.