Main description:

Sensory-being: the enveloping of natural presentness and awareness in an unfolding sensory moment. Sensory Beings: people whose experience of the world, and meaning within it, is primarily sensory. Often these are people who do not have access to language.

If you support someone who understands the world in a primarily sensory way, for example someone with PMLD or later stage dementia, you will recognise that they often face periods of time in which they are left without an activity they can access. This unique, practical guide helps you to plan and deliver sensory activities that lead people into a calm, focused state. You are even invited to let the person you support lead you into a state of sensory focus. Written by a leading sensory specialist this book will help you to:

View the world as the person you support may view it, and identify times when a sensory-being activity may be appropriate.
Understand how to select and create the most engaging, low cost, sensory foci to suit the specific needs of the individuals in your care.
Effectively facilitate sensory-being sessions from start to finish so that the people you care for receive the full and many benefits of calm, focused time.

Tried and tested in a diverse range of settings prior to publication, these techniques and practical tools have already helped many people provide an enriched experience of life for those in their care. Throughout the book you will find numerous case studies and insights from parents, carers, special school practitioners, therapists, research institutions and more so that you can benefit from this broad body of experience.

Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Introducing Sensory Beings, Linguistic Beings and sensory-being

Chapter 2: Sensory engagement and experience

Chapter 3: Stimuli for the visual sense

Chapter 4: Stimuli for the olfactory sense

Chapter 5: Stimuli for the auditory sense

Chapter 6: Stimuli for the gustatory sense

Chapter 7: Stimuli for the tactile sense

Chapter 8: Stimuli for the proprioceptive and vestibular senses

Chapter 9: Foci for Sensory Beings with Dementia

Chapter 10: Sensory makes

Chapter 11: Facilitating sensory-being

Chapter 12: Conclusion

Appendices