Ideas to Stimulate the Tactile System

(Touch)

Arts & crafts are excellent tactile activities: explore paints, glitter glues, foamy soap/shaving cream, clay, sand, wood shavings, shredded paper, water, playdoh and different textured fabrics and material. 

Listening to meditation teaches calmness, and develops understanding of thoughts, feelings and emotions helping to build confidence.

A quick online search will open a library of free meditations, suiting a range of audiences.

Young children can visit secret treehouses, meet sleepy sloths, or go on magic carpet rides. Teenagers can explore the cosmos, meet their spirit animal, or enjoy a relaxing body scan.

Explore dried foods such as lentils, pasta, pulses, and rice.

Explore items that provide good sensory feedback with a range of textures: bristly, bobbled, bubbly, bumpy, bushy, carved, chunky, coarse, cold, corrugated, carved, damp, distended, downy, dry, elastic, enamelled, engraved, etched, flat, feathery, flaky, fleecy, fluffy, foamy, frothy, furled, furry, gravelly, gritty, grainy, glossy, gooey, grooved, hard, hairy, icy, indented, knitted, knobbly, limp, malleable, matte, metallic, moist, mosaic, mushy, padded, patterned, pitted, plastic, pleated, pliable, pointed, polished, prickly, puffy, ribbed, ridged, rough, rubbery, runny, sandy, shaped, shiny, silky, sleek, slimy, slippery, smooth, smudged, soapy, soft, spongy, springy, stiff, stodgy, stubby, syrupy, tickly, tingly, tweedy, viscous, velvety, warm, wet wooden, woolly, woven.

Provide the use of hand fidget toys, give a blanket wrap, massage with or without cream and explore the use of body brushes.

Baking is tactile: knead dough, make pastry, cake mix and batter mix. 

Tip! if the individual is touch sensitive, offer the use of lightweight gloves or provide a tool e.g., a paintbrush to create a barrier.