By Julia Train
Atlantic County’s first sensory gym for pediatric occupational therapy services just opened on May 9.
Pediatric Therapy of South Jersey, located on Chris Guapp Drive in Galloway, provides a fun and safe environment for children to learn how to regulate their nervous system and body.
The gym has a rock wall, a zipline, a foam square pit, monkey bars, swings and more to help strengthen the child’s core, shoulders, wrists and hands.
“I just noticed that there’s really nothing in the area and there’s so many kids who are struggling and aren’t being helped,” said Serena Lopez, 23, owner of Pediatric Therapy of South Jersey.
The sensory gym has four therapists who specialize in primitive reflex and sensory integration and shares a building with Wayfinders Therapy Center, owned by speech therapist Nellie Flynn.
Services are offered in schools, daycare and at home, but they do prefer patients to visit the sensory gym.
“That way we can see what they like, what they don’t like, and they’re in an environment where they feel safe and where they know that they could jump and crash and do all these things that make their body feel good,” said Lopez.
Primitive reflex and sensory integration are cornerstones of their approach so that they can address the root causes of difficulties that are often overlooked.
According to the National Institutes of Health, primitive reflexes are involuntary motor responses originating in the brainstem present after birth in early child development that facilitate survival. They’re supposed to go away within the first year of life.
If they don’t integrate, it can inhibit the child’s overall development.
Lopez said the kids who are jumping and crashing into the floor or can’t stop moving because they’re always fidgeting are the ones who most likely don’t know how to regulate their body.
“They’re craving something called proprioceptive and vestibular input to regulate their body and they just don’t know how to do it,” said Lopez. “We teach a child that it’s kind of like a puzzle. So we try to learn [about] the child a little bit, we see what they like, see what they don’t like.”
Proprioception is one’s awareness of their body and the space around them, according to the National Institutes of Health.
According to the Neurological and Physical Abilitation Center, the vestibular sense is located in the inner ear and lets the brain know what position a person’s head is in. The sense works with other sensory systems to tell one where their body is in relation to space. The vestibular system contributes to one’s ability to balance, maintain an upright posture, and stabilize the head and body when moving.
When a child needs either input, they need to learn how to read the cues from their internal sensory system that tells humans when they’re hungry, need to use the bathroom, feeling certain emotions and more.
Lopez helps children work on all of those skills to help regulate their body and feel safe and comfortable in their own bodies.
If they do not integrate it can inhibit emotional regulation, coordination for sports, social skills, problem-solving, reading/writing, focus and anxiety.
Pediatric Therapy of South Jersey’s services include working on a child’s motor skills, sensory processing (body awareness, fidgeting, seeking or avoiding movement, tactile defensiveness, light/sound sensitivity, crashing, jumping), visual processing (tracking, scanning, eye-hand coordination, letter/color recognition, puzzles, word and letter searches), social skills (empathy, interest and connecting with others, initiating play, problem-solving) and self-care.
Lopez’s gym works on all those skills through fun, engaging activities tailored to each child’s interests and abilities.
To learn more visit their website: www.pediatrictherapysj.com/
