Developmental Approach

Development occurs from the bottom up. The skills and abilities at each level of the developmental pyramid cannot develop adequately unless the child has mastered skills at lower levels to a respective degree.  Many children do not adequately develop all of the necessary foundational abilities before they are asked to do higher-level tasks.  This sets them up for struggle, failure, and decreased self-esteem.  At Porter Academy, we help our students develop their abilities at every level from sensory processing all the way up to academic and social functioning.  Until the students fully develop these skills, we use modifications and supports to allow them to continue to progress academically while we work to develop their underlying abilities. Once students are given the tools (e.g., efficient sensory processing, accurate perceptual abilities), then they are prepared to take on those higher-level tasks that had been so difficult for them (e.g., reading, math, social interactions) even without the modifications and supports.

 

 

 

 

Read more about why movement is so important to learning

1. Lowest level – Sensory systems

Seven sensory systems make up the foundation of the developmental pyramid.  The three sensory systems listed on the bottom row (tactile, vetibular, proprioception) are called primitive or foundational sensory systems.  These systems provide information about our own bodies.  We need to feel secure in our sense of our own bodies before we can effectively process sensory information from the environment through our other senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste).  The three foundational systems develop early in-utero.  Children with special needs often have under-developed primitive sensory systems, especially if they were born prematurely or spent their early development in an under-stimulating environment (e.g., an orphanage).

• The Tactile system provides information about light touch, deep touch, and various textures including sharp, dull, soft, and hard.  The tactile system also provides information about temperature. 
• Children who have difficulty with tactile processing often seek extra touch stimulation by fiddling with objects, chewing objects, or reaching out to touch objects or people inappropriately.  On the other end of the spectrum, some children are hypersensitive to touch and try to avoid certain textures (e.g., clothing, foods).
• The Vestibular system originates in the vestibule of the inner ear.  It provides information about movement and balance.  It has a strong influence on muscle tone, is responsible for regulating arousal levels, and is responsible for coordinating communication between the other sensory systems. 
• Children with an under-developed vestibular system may be over or under-sensitive to movement, have difficulty with self-regulation, space-time organization, visual difficulties, postural control, and resultant learning difficulties.   
• Proprioception refers to the information provided by small sensory receptors in our muscles and joints that tell our brains where we are in space, how our bodies are arranged, and how much pressure we should use to accomplish various tasks in a smooth, coordinated way.
• Children with hypo-responsive proprioception have difficulty grading movements and smoothly carrying out motor tasks.  Deep pressure and heavy work activities are calming/grounding for these children as they improve body awareness.  Children who do not receive sufficient input through their tactile, vestibular, and proprioceptive senses (because their brains do not register the input as readily) go through their lives preoccupied with meeting those primitive needs and are unable to focus on higher-level tasks such as academics.

 At Porter Academy, we help students develop sensory processing through

• Integrated Listening Systems (iLs): This auditory training program is integrated with visual and sensory-motor activities and has been shown to develop the vestibular system, the auditory system, and the ability to integrate sensory input from multiple sensory systems simultaneously.  Please visit Porter Academy’s iLs page for more information about how this works and to read research supporting the benefits of this program.  You can also visit the Integrated Listening Systems website for more information. 
• Sensory Diets: Students participate in sensory-motor activities throughout the day in order to provide sufficient sensory input to their three foundational sensory systems, freeing their brains to focus on higher-level tasks such as academics.
  • Research supporting the effect of sensory diets on sensory processing and self-regulation:
    • Effectiveness of SI Interventions in Children with ASD
    • Effects of Sensory Integration
• Sensory Tools for the Classroom: Students are able to use tools that provide sensory input during class such as fidgets, seat cushions, weighted vests, weighted objects for lap/shoulder, and stools.  Carla Hannaford, Ph.D. discusses in her book Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All In Your Head how receiving sensory input (especially tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular) simultaneous to learning facilitates learning and memory. 
• Multi-Sensory Learning: Students participate in learning activities that integrate input from multiple sensory systems.  For example, students may have to go through an obstacle course in order to collect the letters to spell a word on their spelling list or hit a balloon around the room as they count by fives.  During these multi-sensory activities, students receive input to multiple areas of the brain which become neurologically associated with the academic skill, making the memory more concrete than if they had only heard the information. 
  

2. Second Level - Sensory Motor Skills

The second level of the developmental pyramid is comprised of sensory motor skills and abilities.  Sensory-motor refers to motor abilities that we develop based on input received from our sensory systems.  Some of the abilities that develop at this level include:

• Body scheme:  awareness of the parts of our body, the size of each part, and how the parts connect. 
• Screening Input: the ability to screen sensory input enables us to filter out background noise or extraneous visual stimuli so that we can focus on our work.
• Postural security and stability:  This enables our bodies to make postural adjustments needed to maintain appropriate positions during activities.  For example, we don’t have to think about how to stay seated in a chair because our postural/core muscles provide information to our brain and, in response, our brain constantly tells our muscles to contract/relax in order to maintain a position.  In a child with good postural security, this information is processed at a subconscious level.
• Motor Planning, also called Praxis:  This skill is based on the brain’s ability to tell the body what it needs to do in order to complete a motor task.  Children who can learn a new motor task easily and perform it accurately, after one of two demonstrations, have good motor planning abilities.  Children who need multiple demonstrations or physical guidance, are considered to have difficulty with motor planning.

 At Porter Academy, we help students develop sensory-motor skills through

• Integrated Listening Systems (iLs): The vestibular input provided through the bone conduction as well as the sensory input provided through the activities develop the foundational sensory systems, helping the student to develop body scheme, a sense of laterality, postural security, and motor planning.  The frequency filtration and gating used in iLs also changes areas of the brain and strengthens the muscles in the middle ear that are responsible for dampening extraneous or loud noises (screening input). 
• Occupational Therapy: Activities done in occupational therapy (along with the iLs) facilitate development of the vestibular system and the cerebellum.  Additionally, the occupational therapist also helps students develop motor planning abilities by breaking down tasks into simple components and practicing those components repeatedly through a variety of activities.    
• Teachers and occupational therapists help students develop a sense of laterality and body scheme through activities such as stamping the students’ right hands and doing side-specific exercises (e.g., “take your right hand and touch your left knee”) every morning.  We also use Handwriting Without Tears, which uses multi-sensory handwriting tools and visual cues that help the student orient their letters correctly.  A variety of visual-perceptual exercises also help students develop the ability to perceive directionality.  Handwriting without Tears also helps develop a sense of body scheme through “Mat Man” – a simplified multi-sensory approach to learning the body parts and how they relate to each other.

3.  Third Level - Perceptual Motor Skills

The third level is comprised of perceptual motor abilities that develop once the lower level sensory and sensory motor abilities are intact.  These include fine motor, visual, visual-motor, and bilateral coordination tasks. 

At Porter Academy, teachers and therapists utilize a variety of activities that directly develop these skills.

• Fine Motor Development occurs through activities such as crafts, peg boards, geoboards, certain games, putty, and dressing/fastener practice.
• Ocular-Motor Development occurs through activities such as visually tracking marbles, beanbag/ball exercises, flashlight tag/writing, and fixating on an object as the head is in motion. 
• Visual Perceptual Development occurs through activities such as hidden pictures, form copying in various mediums (shaving cream, geoboards, pegboards, marble grids), and visual-perception worksheets.
• Visual Motor Development occurs through activities such as mazes, form copying on paper (dot, grid, blank), stepwise drawings
• Bilateral Coordination Development occurs through fine motor, gross motor, and visual  activities that require the use of both halves of the body (left/right and top/bottom) and  require the student to cross midline (left/right and top/bottom). We utilize activities from Brain Gym and S'cool Moves as well as original games and exercises.
  • Brain Gym Research
  • S'cool Moves Research:
    • Active Education
    • Research Data
    • Reading-Behavior Link
    • S'cool Moves Research Handouts

 

4.  Fourth Level - Daily Living and Behavior Activities

The fourth level includes self-help skills such as feeding and dressing activities.  Students cannot perform these skills correctly until they have mastered perceptual motor and fine motor skills.
One component of behavior is the ability to maintain self-regulation in class.  Sensory processing must be developed to a functional level before students can sit calmly and quietly and concentrate on their work.

At Porter Academy behavior is facilitated through

1) meeting sensory needs
2) providing just-right challenges that increase self-esteem
3) meeting academic needs, which increases self-esteem
4) consistent positive reinforcement
5) an emphasis on teamwork
6) motivational techniques including Safari Bucks, School Store, and teamwork goals established by individual classroom teachers. 

5. Top Level - Academic Learning

The highest level on the pyramid is attained once a child has developed all of the lower level abilities.  At this level he/she can utilize the cortex of the brain to process academic information, because lower level brain structures, such as the brainstem, are processing sensory information efficiently.
At Porter Academy, academic success is supported by the use of small groups, individualized attention, engaging multi-sensory learning activities, and well-established educational programs.