Sensory Activities: Reaching Someone Without Words

Build one basket and keep it by the chair

The families who use sensory activities consistently are the ones who did not have to go looking. Put a basket where you sit. Six to ten items is plenty, and most of them are already in your house.

• •Textures: velvet, corduroy, silk scarf, sheepskin, a smooth river stone
• •Warmth: towels straight from the dryer, a warmed rice bag, a hot washcloth for the hands
• •Scent: coffee grounds, cinnamon, orange peel, lavender, vanilla, rosemary from the yard
• •Sound: a music player already loaded, a wind chime, a ticking clock
• •Hands: unscented lotion, a soft brush, worry beads, a folded stack of napkins to unfold
• •Weight: a small weighted lap blanket, a heavy book, a folded quilt

A hand massage, step by step

If you learn one thing from this page, let it be this. It takes five minutes, it asks nothing of them, and it gives you something loving to do with the silence.

• •Sit at their side, not across from them. Ask, then wait, then take the hand gently.
• •Warm the lotion in your own hands first — cold lotion startles.
• •Work the back of the hand in slow circles with your thumbs, then each finger, then the palm.
• •Keep contact and keep the pace slow. Talk quietly or say nothing at all.
• •Watch the shoulders. If they drop, it is working. If they pull away, stop immediately and without comment.

Scent is the shortest route to memory

Smell connects to memory more directly than any other sense. Coffee brewing, bread baking, orange peel, pipe tobacco, a particular soap — these often reach further than any question you could ask.

Use one scent at a time and let it stand on its own. Several at once become confusing rather than evocative.