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SEND advice and guidance

Area 2: Sensory Development


Area 2 recognised the importance of working with children and young people to maximise use and development of the senses.

Examples of targeted outcomes of this area include:

  • Using vision effectively.
  • Visual stimulation or visual development.
  • Tactile or haptic perception and development
  • Fine and gross motor skills.
  • Engaging with surroundings.
  • Vestibular development – sense of balance, head/ eye-coordination, visual scanning.
  • Proprioceptive and kinaesthetic development – sense of movement (sense the position of our body when moving through space, as well as to describe the movement of individual body parts in relation to one another).
  • Olfactory development – sense of smell (e.g. smells to support sensory stories / identify food; identify danger such as smoke).
  • Auditory skills – listening skills, hearing and making sense of what is heard, being able to listen to audio at increasing speeds to support learning.
  • Managing sensory overload, reducing sensory stimulation, working with tactile selectiveness