First I want to congratulate everyone for making it through February.  While not the darkest month,  it certainly takes it’s toll.  It is the third consecutive month, in which those of us living above the 35th latitude, cannot absorb Vitamin D from the sun.  By the spring equinox, the sun is finally strong enough that we can finally absorb some free Vitamin D again.  Hope is on the way- about 18 days to go. 

Now back to the topic of the day:  TOUCH.  Who would have thought that basketball and baseball players would pop up as the perfect example for me to introduce the tactile system?  But there it was, staring at me in the Science section of the NY Times last week.  Studies have demonstrated that teams, which are more “touchy-feely” perform better on the court, field, etc.

This did not surprise me.  We have been working with the tactile system in OT for decades.  More recently psychotherapists and neuropsychologists have “discovered”  sensory processing disorders and noted how they have an impact on behavior and emotions.

To give a quick synopsis,  some people crave touch a great deal and love all things tactile.  Others cringe at the thought of touching something “gooey.”  There is a continuum related to the processing of touch from craving a great deal (one may love to play with clay (pottery) or mud (gardening) to being very sensitive, hypersensitive or  tactile defensive to touch.  I’ve had children gag when required to work with paper mache’ in art class.  Others have jumped into a tub full of shaving cream to get the entire body covered.

So What!?

The tactile system plays a significant role in many aspects of our lives.

1. 1. Survival.  Due to our long ago past as animals (do we really have a debate here?) we were programmed with Fright and Flight mechanisms.  If the body felt imminently in danger, the entire body prepared by releasing action (stress) hormones in preparation for fleeing or fighting.  Obviously if the body discerned an unfamiliar touch, it signaled that something strange was very close by and if that strange stimulus was a foe, the danger was quite immediate.   So it was pretty important that the system was alert and ready for action.
   

2. 2. Discrimination.  When we hold and manipulate things, along with looking at the object, we feel the object.  The touch discrimination is key to discreet fine motor or finger dexterity.  Think of how clumsy we become when we use rubber gloves to wash something.
   

3. 3.Balancing out these systems, the sense of touch helps keep us alert, aware of what is going on and influences our emotions.  Massage therapists have learned techniques to touch the body in a way which elicit a relaxation response.  Barbers used to slap some kind of tonic on after a shave to “wake up” the skin on the face. So, touch input can be used to “wake up” the system or help calm it down.
   

4. 4.Less known is the fact that as the touch system develops, in the womb as well as through experiences early in life, the visual-spatial-perceptual system develops.  When a baby grasps a round ball, she learns the concept of “round.”  When the toddler bangs his head on the corner of the table, he learns “sharp” (concept of a right angle emerges later).
   

When people are hypersensitive, there tends to be an over generalized stress response to simple occurrences such a getting brushed on the arm by the person standing behind you in line.  The more these types of encounters occur during the day the higher the level of stress experienced by the individual. 

With hypersensitive children, they may avoid other children and lose out on important social interacting experiences.  Some tactile defensive children feel as though they have been attacked when barely touched, and fight back by pushing or hitting.

Most hypersensitive children avoid manipulatives such as glue, play dough and paints so they miss out on important activities to help develop fine motor coordination.

Some children have hyper-responsive touch and others have hypo-responsive touch discrimination.  In either case, they frequently do not feel or discriminate objects accurately so they have a difficult time working with fine motor materials such.  Think again about personal experiences of trying to do a task with gloves on. 

On the flip side of this, the tactile system can be a very positive  and powerful system that can help energize and wake up the body and prepare it for action.  The information from touch information in the hands helps refine the motor response (of holding a pencil, steering wheel, basketball).  Its alerting power can energize the entire system;  increased energy, muscles ready for action and heightened spatial awareness.

So we are back to basketball.  Those teams that had more high fives,  taps on the shoulder and close contact in the huddles were scientifically proven to perform better than the teams that stood apart (literally).

Here’s the article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/health/23mind.html?scp=3&sq=Science_Times_basketball_and_touch&st=cse

Here’s some great tactile activities to do with your children:

Infant and babies: 

infant massage (there are books on this)

water play during baths

Creams and moisturizers

Taking the baby’s hand and rubbing over varied surfaces.  You can add a language component by labeling the sensation

Baby books with textures

Toddlers and Preschoolers:

Foamy soaps and creams in the bathtub or table top

(puddings can be substituted on the clean table for a yummy treat)

Playdough and clay (as long as the eating everything has ended)

Create a tactile basket with objects of various textures (larger enough not to be swallowed)

Toddler books with textures

Encourage feeling everything at the stores (shape of the can; texture of the fabric)

(Bring hand sanitizer if you are worried about germs). Label object And the sensation

Sous chef (with age appropriate tasks)

Preschoolers and early elementary:

Ditto all of above

Play the feeling game:  Place objects in  bag for the child to identify.  These  can be common objects such as spoons, bottle caps, sponges or more complex such as shapes and textures.

You can find games that require matching the texture

Add shaving cream drawings and letters in the tub or on the kitchen table

Find the object:  in a bowl full of shaving cream, stuck in homemade playdough, box of rice or beans

Have clay available to play with

Create tactile boxes:  show box size bins filled with dried beans, rice and the like

Find recipes for GAK and home made playdough (google on line)

Look at all the tactile type toys near the cash register at many stores:

Stress out balls, kooshes, squishy balls

Sand and water play

Keep training that sous chef and become a clean up helper with suds and sponge

Elementary and beyond (aka grown ups):

Bubble baths and whirlpools

Comfy clothes and blankets

Gardening, baking, sculpting, fine woodworking (sanding), sheetrock work

Paper mache and other messy crafts

Strategies for those tactile defensive folks will be reviewed in depth later.  With tentative children,  encourage short spurts of activity with a towel at the ready to wipe off their hands if they don’t like the sensation.  Precede the activity with a heavy work activity (Blog entries:  February 7, 10, 17 for ideas) and follow with the same.

For more on Vitamin D: 

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002405.htm

Note the paragraph on sun and Boston...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D

Basketball Photograph Provided by The Voice (Georgetown University)

Lynn Kirshbaum, photographer

Giant Koosh Photograph by Eileen Counihan

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