Ep. 85 Sensory Classroom Tour
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What is the episode’s main focus on sensory‑based sessions without a gym?
What's up everyone and welcome to Making the Shift for Autistic Kids.
We're an SLP couple from California with four boys.
And
we're here every week to bring you neuroaffirming tips, tricks, and tools. Are you ready to make the shift?
Let's do this! What is going on, everyone? It is me, Mr. Speech dude, Chris Winger. Look at who's in this picture to my side. That's right. That's me. I just got my staff photos. As you can see, I'm here at work. I'm here live. Jesse and I and our little toddler. He's 20 months old. He uh he recently was injured. Nothing too significant, but Um, we had to take care of some things. Jesse said, you know what? I've got this live show that I need to be at. And it's on, you know, what do you do when you have a space but you don't have a sensory gym? What are some tools and strategies? And I was like, Oh, that's gonna be such a great episode. Have fun. And she's like, No, no, no.
How can simple tactile bins and inexpensive “sensory toys” be used in a high‑school classroom?
I need you to cover. I can remember I gotta take care of Teddy. I said, Oh, that's right up my alley. Hot diggity dog, here we go. You're gonna get some great value. I promise. And I, as you know, go through these things relatively quickly and we just drop some good. pieces of information so you can walk away with some strategies that are effective immediately. All right. Here's the very first thing I want to share with you. Now, for those of you that might be new um viewers watching this, or maybe new listeners if you're listening to the podcast, I work with high school students, I work with older students. So when it comes to talking about sensory tools and strategies. As with anything, I try to use language that goes with the age group.
And in high school, I make sure that I balance that so that way there Really having buy-in and it's actually reflective of of them and their needs. Let me give you an example. In my classroom. It's a classroom, I'm gonna show you in a second. In my classroom, I have a variety of little bins. I got them off of Amazon for a couple bucks. And in these bins, I have a variety of sensory. tactile input type things. The students do not have to grab them if they don't want, but I have them kind of set up and scattered around. Check out these ones right here. Those are a few bucks, they're squishy. Like they're squishy, colorful, like squishy balls, right?
Why should teachers label sensory items as “learning” or “regulation” tools instead of “toys”?
Oh, I can hold on to this in a three hour IEP meeting and be all right. I'm feeling good. I don't refer to these as toys, right? It's like go grab a sensory toy. Well, I work with high school students. So older students just refer to them as what they are. It's a regulation tool. It's a learning tool, right? That's what these are. These are tools to learn. When I'm in an IEP meeting and I'm sitting there, like, I'm not kidding. Keep a bit of these in the middle of the table with IEP and you'll see people grabbing them. They're like, ooh. Like this. I'm focused. I'm dialed in. Let's get this thing going. That's how it is with our students, right? Talk about language like that with the teacher at the beginning of the year, and you're gonna get up like Freddie Freeman in the World Series and knocking out a grand slam.
Imagine the teacher starting the very first day by saying, Hello, everybody. I wanted to share with you that this class is going to go smooth this year. I have a lot of different baskets in the back that are regulation tools, learning tools for you. Feel free to grab one or two if you want, if it helps you. If not, no worries. Right there.
How do you set up a functional sensory space when you only have a tiny room or office?
That was 10 seconds of me setting the tone for the entire school year. So nobody feels stigmatized by grabbing whatever a sensory toy or a fidget. Just call it a learning tool or a regulation tool. And you've got students that are like, this does keep me regulated because that's what it is. That's the purpose. That's meeting the sensory need. All right. So that right there is the language that I use and I recommend that being a strategy that can be shared with teachers so they can use that at the beginning of the year, the beginning of the semester or whenever, right? You could you could do that at any time of the year.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the episode’s main focus on sensory‑based sessions without a gym?
0:08–1:11
2
How can simple tactile bins and inexpensive “sensory toys” be used in a high‑school classroom?
1:11–2:42
3
Why should teachers label sensory items as “learning” or “regulation” tools instead of “toys”?
2:42–3:44
4
How do you set up a functional sensory space when you only have a tiny room or office?
3:44–5:06
5
What impact does unmet sensory need have on a student’s self‑esteem and behavior?
5:06–6:41
6
Which low‑cost sensory tools (bins, rugs, weighted blankets, lights) create a calming classroom corner?
6:41–8:25
7
How can Disney Plus “Xenimation” videos be used as quick sensory regulation tools?
8:25–10:32
8
What final steps and resources (activity book, visual tools) should listeners use to implement sensory strategies right away?
10:32–12:33
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
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Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)