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Sensory Play for Toddlers
Part One: Developing the Sense of Touch By Laura Cone
sistance with that," Dexter says. "It helps them understand where their body is in space. You pull it up to their neck. You can have them push their elbows out or knees up or roll in them. That's fun."
Ann Green Gilbert of Seattle, Wash., founder of The Creative Dance Center, says parents can find creative ways of engaging toddlers in sensory games by singing rhymes, playing patty cake, tickling, massaging or pretending to be the "squeeze bug."
Gilbert also favors the use of spandex material. She suggests grabbing a partner and making a hammock out of a piece of spandex to bounce and swing your toddler. "That material really pushes against the skin," she says. "You can do that with a sheet, too, but the quality of the spandex really molds to the body and presses the child's body and feels very good. Children love that."
Gilbert says our sedentary culture works against children, who are trying to develop their sense of touch. "We are developing our senses actually in the womb," Gilbert says. "You should not wait for a certain age. You should be doing these kinds of activities with your baby. If you wait too long there is going to be significant gaps in the sensory-motor system."
She says the sensory-motor system is the foundation for all learning. "It's extremely important to be holding your toddlers, moving with them, working with different touches and rhythms," Gilbert says. "The most important thing would be movement and dance, even in the womb. Babies aren't getting enough movement in the womb."
After they are born, many infants and toddlers spend too much time sitting in car seats instead of playing on their tummies, according to Gilbert. Parents should look for signs their child has not developed his sense of touch, such as odd walking movements. Infants and toddlers need to engage in creeping and crawling to develop their sense of touch, she says.
"You may see children who have what we call boundary issues because they have not had enough touch and so they have to push against kids and push against objects to find where the edges of their bodies are," Gilbert says. "It seems really odd because this should happen naturally, but there is a lot of environmental issues coming up now and one of them is too much time in a car seat. Another problem is too much time on their backs."