Sensory Toys: What are they? What do they do? Who benefits from them?
Sensory toys are not a new thing. In 2017, fidget spinners were all the rage. The fad featured a fun toy assured to entertain children for hours while driving their teachers and guardians up a wall. Caretakers were divided on the utility of these spinners. Were they great tools for helping children get out nervous energy and stay focused? Or were they distractions that needed to be banned from classrooms?
Arguments were made on both sides. Soon Scientific American pointed out that people had used fidget tools long before they became a category on store shelves. If you’ve ever mindlessly clicked a ballpoint pen or fiddled with a paperclip while working, you’ve used a fidget toy. It seemed that fidget spinners scratch an itch that most people have felt at one time or another.
Fidget spinners have since been recognized as belonging to a larger category of products: sensory toys, a term that has also recently become popular. But what are sensory toys and who are they good for?
These Twist Fidgets are quiet and lightweight, and keep anxious hands busy while letting children focus on things that matter.
What are sensory toys?
Sensory toys are what they sound like: toys that stimulate one or more of a child’s physical senses. These include a child’s five main senses (sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell) as well as a child’s whole-body sense, called kinesthesia or proprioception.
Examples of sensory toys include tactile substances like playdough or putty, noisemakers like rain sticks or poppers, chewable jewelry, or weighted blankets and swings that provide full-bodied effects.
Why do children need toys that stimulate their senses?
Though skills like hearing, smelling, and seeing seem like they just happen, sensory intake is a thing all humans learn. From birth to age 5, a child’s brain develops more than at any other time in life – 90% of a child’s brain growth occurs before kindergarten. Much of this development is the brain learning to process sensory information from the environment. Sensory toys can aid normal childhood development by stimulating the brain centers that are learning how to process sensory information.
But sensory toys — sometimes also called Sensory Integration Toys — are also important for children with maldeveloped sensory skills. Sensory integration refers to a brain’s ability to properly process the information collected by our sensory organs. Some children have difficulty with this intake. Their brains may collect signals that are too strong or too weak, or may misinterpret the signals.
Children with sensory integration disorders may be highly sensitive to input like loud sounds, bright lights, or itchy fabrics. On the other hand, if the child is under-sensitive, they may not notice someone calling their name or tapping their shoulder. They may appear to be inattentive or disrespectful when they simply are not receiving sensory information. They also may be accident prone if they have a low awareness of their body in physical space.
A child with a sensory integration disorder can experience both over- and under-sensitivity, sometimes in different senses and sometimes with the same sense at different times.
Sensory toys can help in two directions. Products such as weighted blankets or noise-canceling headphones can decrease or diffuse the sensory information recieved by an overwhelmed brain. Other toys, such as finger fidgets or scented knickknacks, can provide an amplified, focused sensory experience to help a child practice their integration of that particular sense.
Who are sensory toys good for?
The simple answer is that everyone can benefit from using sensory toys. A 2006 study looking at the impact of stress balls in a sixth-grade classroom found that using fidget tools reduced students’ stress and distraction. It also increased their participation in classroom activities. Sensory intervention with weighted vests has also been found to help teenagers self-regulate their emotions and increase mental health outcomes.
However, sensory toys are particularly beneficial for children with certain developmental or sensory processing disorders. Sensory integration issues are often concurrent with other diagnoses such as ADHD, autism, and OCD. Children with such disorders are susceptible to sensory overload. They may have difficulty focusing or staying calm in a changing environment. They also tend to have delayed kinesthetic development and need more help learning coordination and motor control.
Sensory integration toys can help such children modulate their sensory input. These toys can also provide a calming focus point for a child easily overwhelmed by sensory input. Lastly, they can help children build their sensory integration skills for various senses.
Next week we’ll look at different types of sensory toys and the benefits each type provides to its user.