Willows Sensory

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Reaching out for new textures. We visit C and they can be protective over their hands and what they choose/trust to touch. It was a huge achievement when C reached both hands into this dry crunchy pasta independently.
When C pushed the calmly pushed the tray away we modelled that it is safe to touch, and the sounds it may make by using our hands to touch it first whilst C watched. C pulled the tray back onto their lap and put their hands in.

For anyone who thinks masking is just a girl thing, or who doesn't understand why masking is so exhausting, here's a conversation I had with my son on the way home from school today.

"Mummy, I hope my friend didn't see me just then."

"Really? Why's that?"

"Well, I'm kind of a different person at school. I'm, like, smiling and making jokes and messing around with them.

But I need to plug in an extra wire in my brain to do it. And if there's someone I don't know very well, I have to plug in three or four extra wires.

All those extra wires use up a lot more power, and that's why my social battery is low.

Sometimes I use up all my power in two or three minutes and that's when I have to be quiet and get someone else to do the talking for me."

Pizza oven

Link
A cornucopia of sensory engagement ideas in this issue.
We have lost two sensory stars from our world and PMLD Link kindly included my AI poems to both Richard Hirstwood and to Flo Longhorn.

Fresh garlic bread made by the kitchen team ready to fuel everyone up for an afternoon of work 🍴

I enjoy personalising activities.
Here we have a client’s van he can paint, wheels to turn and a phrase to play around with.