Using “sensory layering” to enhance nervous system regulation

Speaker 1 (00:00): So sensory layering is the idea that you can manipulate an environment to add or take away sensory input in an infinite amount of combinations to try to boost as much regulation as possible for each person in an environment. Welcome to the Sensory Wise Solutions podcast for parents where parents can get real actionable strategies to support kids with sensory processing disorder. I’m Laura Ot and mom. To Liliana, a sensory sensitive kid who inherited my anxiety and my love for all things Disney. Consider me your new OT mom, bestie. I know my stuff, but I also know what it’s really like in the trenches of parenting a child with sensory processing disorder. Speaker 2 (00:50): Okay, mom, enough about me. Let’s start the podcast. Speaker 1 (00:56): Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today is a short and sweet one. We are talking about sensory layering and what that is, so let’s get into it. One thing I want you to remember and why sensory layering is going to make more sense to you is that sensory processing is an automatic sequence of events that happens within your nervous system at all times of the day. Literally every millisecond of every single day For the rest of time, your brain and body are taking in sensory information, organizing it in your brain, and then doing some outward response. Sometimes that response is not really visible to the eye. It’s kind of just staying regulated or ignoring sensory input, but that’s technically still an action that your brain has told your body to do. That is sensory processing, and like I said, it is happening at all times of the day in every environment. (02:05)So you often hear me talk about ways to regulate the nervous system that is more active on your child’s part. So we’re trying to get them to move their body. We are having them take deep breaths, we’re having them engage with a sensory bin or do some animal walks. Those are all really important ways to activate certain parts of the sensory system to regulate the nervous system. But I also want to share with you that there is another way to help boost regulation, and this way is sort of passive and it involves you manipulating the environment or the task itself so that the child can feel more regulated and you can actually combine that with some of those active sensory strategies, and I call it sensory layering. So think of sensory layering like this. This is the best analogy I can come up with, but I’m going to break it down for you better in just a second with some actual examples. (03:09)But here’s my example. Think of it like this. Maybe you’re wearing a tank top, then a long sleeve shirt over that tank top and a jacket over that. If you start getting hot or warm, one way to cool down would be maybe changing the thermostat in that room so that the air conditioner’s on or just the environment changes the temperature a little bit. That would be like a passive strategy, or you could remove one of your layers of clothing. Maybe other people in the room need it warmer because they don’t have layers, so you can’t really change the thermostat. So taking off layers for you works best so that everyone can coexist in the same environmental temperature. Hopefully that makes sense and that kind of explains why I got the term sensory layering where I came up with it. But let’s talk more specifically. What is sensory layering? (04:02)What do I mean by that? Again, this isn’t a scientific term if you look it up, I don’t even think anything will show up, and it’s not something that they specifically taught this concept in grad school or training. It’s just something that I actually find a lot of OTs and even caregivers and teachers already do once they learn about how sensory processing works. There wasn’t just a name for it, so I describe it as sensory layering and maybe you already do it. So sensory layering is the idea that you can manipulate an environment to add or take away sensory input in an infinite amount of combinations to try to boost as much regulation as possible for each person in an environment. So what are some examples of sensory layering? Some examples include turning off the lights or maybe dimming the lights while your child is swinging or adding a weighted lap pad while they’re in a hammock swing and maybe also adding some music that they’re listening to. (05:09)You can mix and match a ton of combos once you find what tools and strategies work for your child, and don’t be afraid to make a mistake. I run so many different communities for parents who are really excited to explore a lot of sensory strategies, and I find that a lot of them are scared to offer the wrong one and should I do this at this time? Should I do that at that time? It’s great to already start thinking like a detective and trying to think of the best ways to offer it to your child, but don’t be afraid to offer it and a few times and decide whether it works or doesn’t work. You really have to explore and go through it through trial and error. And what I really love about the concept of sensory layering is that this is what allows us to start individualizing sensory strategies and regulation tools in a room with conflicting sensory profiles. (06:06)You know what I’m talking about? This is like when you’re in a classroom with so many different students or maybe a house with multiple kids or maybe a house with one kid, but the caregivers or the grownups in that household have conflicting sensory profiles. One person might need music, one person might need silence, one person might need more visual input. One person gets visually overloaded, and so how can you manipulate the environment, change the position, turn some things down, provide a certain tool so that we can layer the environment with differing sensory inputs? Here’s another example. Maybe you have the whole classroom quiet, but you allow one child to have music on their headphones, or let’s say that it’s the reverse. Maybe the teacher puts on some calming instrumental music in the class during silent reading time or some independent work time, and one kid has a nervous system that over responds to sound and that’s too distracting. (07:09)So then they put on noise reducing headphones. Maybe in that same scenario, the kid with noise reducing headphones is still overwhelmed by the classroom sounds, and we don’t want to send them out of the classroom, so you’ll add a weighted lap pad while they’re reading or doing independent work. Maybe you could also let them chew on a mint for oral input. That is sensory layering. You’re combining different sensory inputs, taking some away, allowing there to be more than one sensory tool used at a time. Another example, maybe you have a kid at home sitting down to do some homework and they’re not quite regulated enough, so you give them a cold water bottle with a straw for some oral input. Then you also dimm the lights in the room, but you give them a desk lamp to visually just spotlight their desk work so the rest of the environment is kind of muted or dimmed, but the light is just focused on the worksheet or whatever they’re working on at the table. (08:08)You might also provide a wiggle cushion or let them sit on a yoga ball instead of a chair, and perhaps you also have some music going on in the background or allow them to use some headphones. So you see how it’s kind of a mix. There are some active strategies where you’re having them sip water through a water bottle, which gives them some calming oral input, but you’re also manipulating the environment. You’re turning down the bigger lights. You’re offering them a lamp light. You are giving them a wiggle cushion. There’s a lot of different ways you can combine the things. The point is, at any given time, you have that ability to add or take away sensory aspects to the environment. The bonus is sensory. Layering is more passive, which means you the grownup have more control of it and it doesn’t require the child to really do anything. (09:01)Of course, we want them to do some active movement and gain active sensory exploration, but sometimes we can’t get them to do it or they can’t do that strategy at that moment, or maybe it’s not enough. So we need to give them a boost to their nervous system by manipulating the sensory qualities of the environment. All right. That’s it for today. You can become really good at sensory layering when you have a good understanding of the nervous system and have good observation skills, and both of those are things that I teach in depth in the Sensory Detectives Bootcamp, which will be opening for enrollment at the end of October. So if you’re listening to this and you want to learn more, get on the wait list at the OT butterfly@theotbutterfly.com slash s DBC waitlist. The link will be below in the show notes. This was a short and sweet episode, but I hope it was helpful. I will talk to you soon. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider rating it and leaving a review, which helps other parents find me as well. Want to learn more from me. I share tons more over on Instagram at the OT Butterfly. See you next time.