Strategies for Challenging Behaviors
Imagine a world where everyday sounds feel overwhelming, ordinary textures cause discomfort, bright lights become distracting, or even the simplest movements require extraordinary effort. For many children with sensory processing challenges, navigating everyday experiences can feel like an enormous undertaking.
At New Horizons Academy, we believe that every child deserves to feel safe, comfortable, understood, and empowered to explore the world around them. Our Sensory Integration program is designed to help students better understand and respond to the sensory information they experience throughout their day, creating opportunities for greater confidence, meaningful participation, and independence.
Our brains are constantly receiving information through our senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, movement, balance, and body awareness. While many of us process this information without even thinking about it, some children experience the world very differently. Sensations that seem ordinary to one child may feel overwhelming, confusing, or barely noticeable to another.
Through individualized sensory experiences, purposeful activities, and supportive environments, our dedicated professionals help students explore their senses, develop strategies for managing sensory challenges, and build skills that support learning, communication, movement, and everyday activities.
From calming sensory experiences and gentle movement to interactive lighting, specialized equipment, and hands-on exploration, our multi-sensory environment provides opportunities for students to discover what helps them feel more comfortable, focused, and engaged.
We understand that sensory differences are not simply behaviors to be corrected. They are important parts of how a child experiences and interacts with the world. That's why our approach begins with understanding each student's unique needs, respecting their individual responses, and creating opportunities for exploration at a pace that feels right for them.
Because when children feel understood and supported, they have more opportunities to connect, participate, discover their abilities, and experience the joy of learning.
At New Horizons Academy, Sensory Integration is about more than managing sensory challenges. It's about helping every student find their balance, build confidence, and discover a world of possibilities.
Sensory experiences include touch, movement, body awareness, sight, sound, smell, taste, and the pull of gravity. Distinguishing between these is the process of Sensory Integration (SI) . While the process of sensory integration occurs automatically and without effort for most, for some the process is inefficient. Extensive effort and attention are required in these individuals for sensory integration to occur, without a guarantee of it being accomplished. When this happens, goals are not easily completed, resulting in sensory integration disorder (SID) / sensory processing disorder (SPD) .
The normal process of sensory integration begins before birth and continues throughout life, with the majority of sensory development occurring before the early teenage years. For most children sensory integration develops in the course of ordinary childhood activities. But for some children, sensory integration does not develop as efficiently as it should. When the process is disordered, a number of problems in learning, motor skills and behavior may be evident. The ability for sensory integration to become more refined and effective coincides with the development process as it determines how well motor and speech skills, and emotional stability develop.
Those who have sensory integration dysfunction may be unable to respond to certain sensory information by planning and organizing what needs to be done in an appropriate and automatic manner. This may cause a primitive survival technique called ” fright, flight, and fight ” or withdrawal response, which originates from the “primitive” brain. This response often appears extreme and inappropriate for the particular situation.
By providing Sensory Integration services, we are able to supply vital sensory input and experiences that children with sensory processing issues need to grow and learn. The sensory integrative approach is guided by one important aspect: the child’s motivation in selection of the activities. By allowing them to be actively involved, and explore activities that provide sensory experiences most beneficial to them, children become more mature and efficient at organizing sensory information.
Our program uses stimulation of visual (visual integration training), auditory, and vestibular (balance) senses to help improve sensory issues. Most of us unconsciously learn to combine our senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, balance, body in space) in order to make sense of our environment.
Children with autism have trouble learning to do this. Sensory Integration places a child in a room specifically designed to stimulate and challenge all of the senses. During the session, we work closely with the child to encourage movement within the room and to explore new activities.
Benefits of Sensory Integration include:
- Developing or reactivating hearing, sight, smell, touch and taste
- Advancing coordination and motor development
- Encouraging children to explore and discover their environment
- Encouraging the child to take control of their environment
- Promoting independence
- Increasing choice and opportunity for the child
- Eliciting creativity and imagination
- Increasing concentration and focus attention
- Increasing awareness and improves alertness
- Encouraging communication verbal and non-verbal
- Increasing social interaction
- Promoting calmness
- Decreasing aggressive behavior
- Providing an unrestrained environment where children feel that they can have fun
- Providing mental and physical relaxation
Sensory integration therapy is based on the assumption that the child is either overstimulated or under stimulated by the environment. Therefore, the aim of sensory integration therapy is to improve the ability of the brain to process sensory information so that the child will function better in his daily activities.
Our multi-sensory room is a place where children and adults with special needs can explore and develop their senses and skills. There are many different features ranging from a soft play area, interactive equipment which makes dramatic changes to the sensory environment using sound and lighting and a large swing with multiple “sitting” styles to suit each client’s needs.
A multi-sensory room is extremely therapeutic for both children and adults with sensory processing disorders… from mild to severe. Our new multi-sensory room is designed to gently stimulate some, or all, of the senses depending on the needs of the client. This in turn leads to improvements in their overall health and development.
Controlled sensory input has been shown to be effective in reducing stress and improving concentration, eye-hand coordination and motor function for children and adults with special needs, developmental disabilities, autism, chronic pain, stroke, brain injuries, and other conditions.
Our aim is to develop and provide even more programs to help improve our clients’ overall mental and physical abilities.