Sensory Motor Integration

July 9, 2015

We learned about the way that people integrate their senses and interpret them.
This is a great breakdown of how we integrate our senses;

            This means that we don't react to our environment until we have sensed something, then interpreted what we have experienced and references it with past experiences and it only organizes the process once the brain has decided what we should do about it.  The final step is to actually react to the stimulus.  There can be a breakdown at any point of the process. In an assistive technology course we did a task analysis of the writing process which has all of these processes involved plus a whole lot more.  It truly helps a lot in teaching struggling students, when you have a proper appreciation of the difficulty.  I think that I am far more sensitive to the students now than I was before. This complexity should be taught in the B.ED. Program.  I worked hard to keep students on task and to ensure that they were given an opportunity to write, but I did not place a high priority on other ways of expressing their thoughts.  I did not put a high enough priority on the need to move, when I was in the classroom.  Now I want to get a chance to get into an L.C. And really put all of these new discoveries to good use.
             The things that I have learned in my Assistive Tech. course really 
complement what I am learning in this course.  For example, I am learning about how we can use everyday items to make assistive technology in the other class.  We have looked at things like glue dobbers as something that someone can use to help them to write, if they find the pincher grasp to be too awkward.  Here are a few things that people have found that might be helpful.

                 The color dividers can be a color overlay.  The scoop can be used to help a non-verbal student answer questions, and the enlarged numbers are great for students who have visual impairment.  These items can be used to practice skills, and they help to make the integration of all other parts of the sensory motor integration process less of a conscious effort.  There is so much more to learn.