Sensory Integration Education

Joanna Grace, Sensory Engagement and Inclusion Specialist, Author, Trainer and TEDx Speaker joined us for a discussion for this month's edition of SensorNet. Joanna, founder of the Sensory Projects, has been facilitating a number of webinars in collaboration with Sensory Integration Education including Discovering Sensory Stories and Sensory Engagement for Mental Wellbeing. More recently she presented at The Future is Sensory: Sensory Integration Education Annual Conference 2021 on “The Magic Hidden in the Sensory Projects”. SensorNet Editor Gina spoke with Joanna in late 2021 to hear more about her work on the Sensory Projects and to learn more about how sensory stories can be used. Joanna is extremely engaging and insightful and it was a pleasure to have the time to chat with her. We know you will all enjoy this feature. 

You can also watch the interview with Joanna in video format or as a podcast:

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Background

Joanna’s background is in education and she shared with us how her work experience in this area has led her to where she is today. She worked as a primary school teacher in a special school for students with severe and profound special educational needs and disabilities. She also worked in mainstream primary and secondary schools and lectured at university. She had a role in inspecting schools for their provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Across her career, she has worked with a wide range of ages and abilities.

Joanna shared the personal aspects of her life which also inform what she does now. Joanna’s background is steeped in inclusive practice. She first worked as a support worker when she was thirteen years old. Both her mother and her grandmother worked towards an inclusive society and this had a significant influence on her childhood. Her mother used to volunteer at a special school play scheme, so her summer holidays were spent playing alongside those children who attended that school. People who are differently abled have always been a part of her landscape.

In her private life, Joanna has been a foster carer for individuals with severe and profound special educational needs and disabilities. She also has family members with physical disabilities and neurodiverse conditions, so her own personal experiences have played a vital role in informing her work. Through her work experience as a teacher amongst many other roles, she has worked with people across the lifespan. In addition to this, she has worked outside of education in adult care. She is in a unique position of being able to view scenarios from many different angles based on her personal and professional experiences. While her roots and foundation originated from her education background, she now says that the Sensory Projects have enabled her to go broader than the education sector.

The Motivation for Devising Sensory Stories

The Sensory Projects are devised on the principle that you do not need expensive equipment to have effective tools for inclusion. You just need the right knowledge and understanding.

Ultimately, it is that knowledge and understanding that makes the difference. The Sensory Project was originally set up to cover the sensory stories project but has now expanded into many other projects. The sensory stories project came about when Joanna was working in a special school for children with severe and profound special educational needs and disabilities, in which she taught children aged between 6-8 years old. Within that classroom, there was a significant range of abilities: children who were at an academic level equivalent to small infants versus children who were exceeding their mainstream peers. These included autistic children whose intellectual capabilities were superb, but who couldn’t survive within a mainstream environment. Joanna was differentiating the curriculum within her class in a significant way.

Joanna shared her reflections with us: "When I was qualified, in my second year of teaching, our school was looking at how they could be more inclusive of their students with profound and multiple learning disabilities, within the main cohort of the school. The school looked at putting a plan in place that meant once a week within the school, the children from the special class would come out into their peer aged classes. So in my classroom, I gained an additional two students. I was new to teaching, enthusiastic, keen to demonstrate my skills from my inclusive background. 

"I thought this was a great plan but I was barely coping with the class I had. The two additional students with profound and multiple learning disabilities had very different support needs to the other children in the class and so all of my spare time meant I was constantly thinking about what I could do on Wednesdays to make this a more cohesive lesson for all the children. I would plan these sessions that were accessible to mainstream class but I wasn’t really offering the two additional students with profound and multiple learning disabilities something that was accessible to them. They were present physically but it didn’t truly feel like inclusion. Alternatively, I would plan the session for the two additional students with profound and multiple learning disabilities and I would lose the rest of the class as the learning content was not engaging enough for them. 

"I am very good at creative practice. I am able to gather and process a lot of information about a particular topic and cross reference that information, as many autistic brains are. However, I have difficulty in working as part of a team so I didn’t tell anybody that I was struggling on those days. The teacher next door seemed to figure out that I was having difficulties on these particular Wednesdays and she suggested I try introducing a sensory story. She provided me with a box of sensory items and I felt it was like a “hallelujah” moment. I knew that in that box I had a story that I could share with the whole class that was meaningful to all levels and abilities. I could start us all off in one place and we could be in that story together. I would then tailor the various activities according to the students' needs and come back together at the end of the session. 

"I am now known for sensory stories because I have written two books about the topic and published sensory stories. People think I am the creator and developer of sensory stories. I am not – I am the biggest fan of sensory stories because they had such an impact on my teaching career. I have gone on so many adventures with sensory stories since that time. It would be nice to say they had a significant impact and so I was compelled to write them at that point in my career but there is an eleven-year gap between that experience and impact in my life to me then progressing on to set up The Sensory Projects. The original aim of the sensory stories project was to write five stories and now there are thirty published on the Sensory Stories Project and a further twelve have been published by other authors. I also have other avenues that I am busy working on such as sensory access stories and co-authoring sensory stories. I am so grateful for all the opportunities sensory stories have brought me. 

"The Sensory Projects is moving into being a publisher of other sensory stories also. With any art form, you expect the consumers of that art form to become its creators. The original audience of sensory stories are those with severe and multiple learning disabilities and that is an audience that many would say cannot become the creators. I have been working in recent years to see that audience create their stories. 

Engaging the Senses

"I describe myself as a sensory engagement specialist because that is what I specialise in doing: getting people's senses interested in something. My reason for this is I want to be able to include people with profound and multiple learning disabilities in sensory stories, activities and projects that I run. If it is engaging somebody who faces many barriers to access, then of course it engages everybody else as well. The most inclusive route is that I start with those with profound and multiple learning disabilities and then I have something that is for everybody. Whereas when you are trained as a teacher, you are often told, “plan your lesson and then work out what the children who are high achieving will do and work out what the children who won’t manage will do and so you start in the middle and plan up or down. 

"However, I think if you start at the senses and go up from there, you gather everybody and you make the experience richer for everyone involved. What I look for when I am seeking to engage the senses, is an experience that appeals to the senses alone. Even if your cognition is severely impacted, I want to capture your vision, taste or sense of touch. I look for things that draw the attention of sensory systems or that fill whole sensory systems. Then I know they are going to be richly engaging sensory experiences.

"From there it can go in a few different directions. If I am writing a story, it’s one thing to have a great sensory experience, but it has to be relevant to the story so I generally start with a story and then I find what will enrich the story. 

"Another direction I explore is the development of the sensory systems and this is something that your readers will all be familiar with. Each of your senses develops skills in stages. There are some skills you are born with and then there are later skills that you develop. I often compare it to maths. If you are teaching maths to somebody, you start with experiences about one and many and then you cover counting, addition, and it continues to advance to algebra. So if I want you to be able to do something easy, I will ask you to count before I will ask you to do algebra. Counting is much easier and more accessible. At a sensory level, there is a visual equivalent of counting and algebra and often for me in my work, I am looking for sensory experiences that belong to that early development because they are the most likely to capture everybody. They are the easiest for the brain to process, can be calming and can help a person to feel safe. Some of my work overlaps with people who express their difficulties with the sensory world through their behaviour and so engendered experiences of sensory security are really valuable for me to understand them. Within one of my books entitled “Sensory-Being for Sensory Beings”, there are chapters that explain each of the sensory systems and the development of that system with an eye for what you might choose if you are looking to create these engaging sensory experiences.

Creating Stories

"When I write the stories for the Projects, I always try to create really interesting stories with enriching experiences, but I can never create a story for just one individual person. When you are working with an individual as a therapist, you will know their sensory capacity and ability in greater detail and therefore are in a position to possibly personalise it to them. It is true that we all prefer stories about ourselves.

"Thinking back to my background as an educator and my own personal life experiences, I channelled this when initially developing the sensory stories. At the very beginning of this project, I took six months off work to read research, learn and understand more about the sensory systems and the art of storytelling etc. I dedicated specific time to this continued professional development and it has stood to me over time. I live a lot of my life on trains, because I work across the UK providing training and this is where I continue to take the time to read and digest new research, so that I can remain up to date and continue to foster my knowledge on the sensory systems.

"Reading research on storytelling is a very different experience. Research is typically written in a very structured manner with a set formula. However, it is very difficult to articulate within research literature about the space you occupy when you tell a story with somebody. It’s different from having a chat or discussion with someone. When you are in the story telling space, you are better able to cope with the things you may typically have difficulty with. If you are supporting those who have sensory processing difficulties, there is a chance they may struggle less with these challenges embedded within a story, compared to outside of the story. It can help that person feel less overwhelmed, scared or intimidated by that sensation.

"We know that when you are in the story-telling space, you are bolder and you feel more connected to the people who share the space with you. It can have an inclusive and bonding effect to share stories with people. It is a way to create communities and connections and to develop relationships with people through sharing stories." 

This builds upon the concept that therapists use in practice; the therapeutic relationship. Therapists will often work closely with individuals and hold information about the individuals specific needs and so this can contribute to the personalisation of their sensory story. Staying safe and being aware of any sensory sensitivities that a person may have, is an important consideration which Joanna also speaks about. This is where a team of people working with the individual can inform each other and share information to best support an individual. We can still have that space of creativity but be informed by the individual’s own sensory preferences.

Joanna has written a number of books including “Sensory Stories for Children and Teens with Special Educational Needs: A Practical Guide” which has background information on sensory stories, five sensory stories with activity plans to accompany them, and would be a useful resource for teachers. Some of Joanna’s other titles are listed below and you can find out more information from her website: www.thesensoryprojects.co.uk 

We wish to extend out thanks to Joanna for speaking with us and sharing her knowledge on sensory stories for all our readers. 

A Selection of Books by Joanna Grace

Sensory Stories for Children and Teens with Special Educational Needs: A Practical Guide

Sensory Stories for Children and Teens with Special Educational Needs: A Practical Guide

Voyage to Arghan (A Sensory Story)

Ernest and I (Sensory Story)