Sensory Awareness

Al Kaufman, COMS

alan.kaufman@pgcps.org

Sensory Awareness was designed to help people who have recently lost their vision make maximum, beneficial use of their remaining senses and sensory abilities, thus increasing their independence. Sensory techniques designed to improve the sense of touch can improve interpretation of information obtained from the cane and make the learning of Braille and keyboarding much easier. In the same way, being able to distinguish between sounds increases the understanding of orientation and mobility techniques as well as daily household tasks such as cooking and cleaning.

What are the senses and sensory abilities we will be discussing?

1. Olfactory- sense of smell

2. Listening Skills and Sound Localization- ability to distinguish sounds and determine where the sounds are located in relation to your body.

3. Tactual Perception- awareness of ability to feel objects and determine shapes, textures, etc.

4. Chemical Sensation- ability to taste.

5. Kinesthetic Ability- movement of body. A sense that perceives bodily movement, position, and weight and is mediated by nervous elements in tendons, muscles, and joints. (Example: Finding the bathroom in your house without tactual information- sense you are there).

6. Perception- awareness of one’s environment through physical sensation. (Example: feeling the cold outside air against face when door is open).

7. Physical Orientation- awareness of self in relationship to self and environment. (Example: you, in a classroom, within a building, within a block, within a city, etc.)

8. Manipulative Ability- Ability to manipulate the environment to use your sense to keep yourself oriented. Ability to add sensory information to the environment to increase awareness of the environment. (Example: wind chimes in the tree to locate house).

9. Coordination- Use all of your senses together to become aware of the environment.

Class Content and Exercises:

Visual Memory:

Recalling past visual experiences to form a mental image. This skill should be enhanced for people who have become adventitiously blind. For visualization skills to remain effective they must be continuously practiced and reinforced. Additionally, visual memory must not be confused with daydreaming: images that enter a person’s mind without conscious decision.

Sample Exercises:

• Teacher describes a pencil and the class guesses what it is: Slender cylinder, point on one end, soft-cushion material on the other end, smells of lead, light in weight, length can be 7” long, writing instrument.
• As a class, think about what a doorknob that you have seen before looks like, (characteristics- waist high, round, plastic, wooden, key hole, brass, color of door). Ask one student to describe the doorknob they are picturing. What other questions need to be asked to get a good idea of the characteristics of the doorknob?
• Imagine what you think a car would like if the last time you saw a car was 30 years ago. How can this be beneficial and/or detrimental?

Visualization:

Being able to consciously form a mental image of a person, place, object or situation.

Sample Exercises:

• “Missing Person” - Describe a family member as if he/she were missing. Description should be to assist the police in locating the missing person. The class should visualize the person described and ask additional questions to form an accurate mental image.
• Picture someone you have not seen in many years. How may your visualization be inaccurate?
• “Walking Through Walls” - Imagine starting at the front door of your home and walking ahead in a straight line, going through any walls. Visualize and describe the rooms you pass through.
• “Mystery Guest” - Walking sighted guide the student should be aware of the information they are tactually receiving through their hand. Based on such information, the student should be able to construct a mental image of the guide even if they had never seen the guide before. Examples of information: height, age, body structure, gender, race, and personality factors. Have the blindfolded students walk sighted guide with a mystery guest for 1-3 minutes. The guide is not allowed to talk. Do not let the students discuss what they learned until all of the class has walked with the guide. When all of the students have had a turn, have them describe the guide and guess the person, through the information they obtained from their elbow.

Auditory Awareness:

Important because the students need to learn how to tune out distracting sounds and focus on important sounds.

Sample Exercises:

• Sound Recognition – Have students identify various sounds: opening a zipper, pencil/pen/marker writing on paper, pulling tape from dispenser, various coins falling on table, etc.
• Sound Discrimination - Read the emergency exit procedures for the building with noise in the background (a radio with static sound). Discuss the difficulty, but importance, of tuning out the distracting sound. Good exercise for children with autism.
• Sound Localization - Have students walk toward a constant, then intermittent, then single sound source. Practice alignment with a stationary and then a moving sound. Doorbell works well. Can make it a game for two people.
• Eye Contact - Make eye contact by looking just above the sound of the voice. Discuss with class their feelings concerning eye contact and the importance of eye contact. Identify and point to the sound (voice); turn eyes to the sound; turn head and focus eyes on the sound; and turn body toward the sound.
• Shaking hands - Discuss difficulties with and importance of shaking hands. Listen for the voice of the person with whom you intend to shake hands and turn to face that person, state your intention to shake hands. Bring your hand to your waist, keeping hand and arm close to your body, extend the fingers in preparation for the handshake and move your hand and arm slowly toward the other person.

Tactual Awareness:

Perceptions gained through the tactual sense coupled with auditory and visual memory abilities will serve to increase the student’s visualization skills and total awareness of all aspects of their daily life. The tactual sense includes information obtained not only from hands and fingers but also the skin, feet, face, etc. and perceptions such as slopes.

Sample Exercises:

• Identify various household objects by touch.
• “Apple Baby” - Each student is given an apple and told to get to know the apple through their tactual sense. The apples are then collected and handed out to a different student. Each student’s goal is to get their “baby” back by describing their original apple so that the person currently holding it will recognize it and return it. The people holding the apple are allowed to ask questions as well to verify information.
• Give a wooden, plastic, and metal spoon. Talk about likenesses and differences.
• Visit a taxidermist

Chemical Sense:

Taste and smell. The following exercise emphasizes the importance of using all of the senses together.

Sample Exercises:

• Talk about the strong association between smell and memory. Have them think of a memory that involves smell.
• Ask class to feel a tube of Chapstick. Then ask them to feel a tube of insect balm (in an identical container). Ask them to announce what they think the items are. Then, ask them to smell the contents, relying on their olfactory sense to determine the object. Repeat with baby wipe and Clorox wipe containers. Adults enjoy comparing Preparation H and toothpaste.
• Have students try to determine the taste of a jelly bean while holding an onion to their nose.

Kinesthetic Sense:

Time and distance. The following exercises show how using kinesthetic senses alone may be detrimental.

Sample Exercises:

1. Tell students they will be asked to estimate the time of a walk. One by one take students out on a sighted guide walk. The guide should carry on a conversation with the student. At the end of the walk ask the student to guess how long they have been walking. Record the estimated time and the actual time. Read all the times aloud at the end.
2. Mark off 25 feet in a long hallway. Have students, one at a time, walk the length of the hallway until they think they have reached 25 feet. Mark all their places then have them all come out and stand at their marks so they can notice the wide range.