 What teeny tiny steps could make a big difference when it comes to creating environments that are accessible and manageable for children and young people who struggle with sensory overwhelm. That's the topic we are exploring in today's episode of Pookie Ponders, so let's dive right in. Okay, so today's episode is all about people who experience sensory overwhelm. People like myself. I referred to children and young people in the introduction, but you could apply these ideas to anyone like so much of my work. So this will include people like myself who are autistic. It will include our ADHD pals. It will include anyone who has any kind of sensory processing disruption or challenge. Anyone who finds the world sometimes just a bit much. When we are living in a neurotypical world, when we have sensory differences, then it can feel pretty challenging on a day-to-day basis. Things can sound too loud. Things can feel too hot or cold. Things can smell too much and the visual input can be overwhelming. There's just a lot going on and it can be a little bit challenging for those of us who feel things more when it comes to the sensory stuff. Before we kind of dive in in what we can do to adapt and help, I do think it's really important just to note that there are some fantastic things that come with this too. So those of us who are kind of super sensory, this can be fantastic. Those of you who are neurotypical listening to or watching this will never experience the joy in quite the same way that I do with some smells. When we get the smell of Petricor, so Petricor, my favourite word, my favourite smell, Petricor is when it hasn't rained in a while and the rain comes down and the baked earth gives off that special earthy smell. That smell is called Petricor and the joy that I experience in response to that smell because I smell it so much and I feel it so deeply and it genuinely makes my heart sing and nothing could feel better than those moments when I'm smelling Petricor. And there's lots of other things like that, that those of us who are sensory seekers, super sensory people will experience in terms of the joy of having very, very highly tuned and active senses. It can be great. However, however, on a day to day basis in a neurotypical world, when we're just trying to kind of carry on and go about our normal lives, then lots and lots and lots of sensory input can feel a little bit too much. So what can we do to help with this? If we're trying to support children and young people or indeed adults experiencing this over sensory stimulation stuff. So I like to do what I call a comfort audit. And this is where you walk into the room, setting, space, place, classroom, bedroom, whatever it might be, the space, the zone that we're thinking about here. And you walk into that room in the mindset of the person who you have in mind, our sensory super seeker. And we just see how that room feels from their point of view. We will think, what can I see? We'll look around us and we'll notice the different colors and the different surfaces and the different brightnesses. And we'll just notice all the visual input and just begin to wonder a little bit. I wonder how that would feel if I was very, very tuned into my visual senses. Would that feel okay? Would that feel overwhelming? I would then think about what can I hear? And I try to tune into the different noises. And I would try to go really quiet and really listen for the quiet, quiet sounds or the sounds that might seem far away to me and think about how they might sound to someone who is a very, very zoned in in terms of their sense of sound. Those of us with very acute hearing for particular sounds, they will feel like a jackhammer going off. So a clock ticking quietly in the corner of the room might not bother you. For me, that clock ticking in the corner of the room means I'm hearing nothing else at all. Just the ticking of that clock as though a jackhammer going off in my head. And I cannot focus on anything else. So it's worth listening out for those sounds. Also worth thinking about how easy it would be for someone who struggles with auditory input, who's very, very tuned in to sound, whether they're going to be able to conduct a conversation. Another thing that many of us will struggle with is if there's more than one conversation happening concurrently in a room. How I ever worked in an open plan office is beyond me. Although, on reflection, the points in my life when I was working in open plan offices or indeed classrooms were also the points in my life when I was struggling with self harm and anorexia. So maybe I didn't manage as it turns out. So it's really hard for many of us, not everyone, but many of us to focus on a conversation or focus on anything when there's other conversations going on. So if this isn't something that you experience, just to help you understand it, if you're talking to me and then someone over here is having another conversation, perhaps we're all around a big table and there's a couple of different conversations going on. Maybe we're all having a meal. There's two different conversations going on. Quite a normal scenario. Most people can manage that quite well. The problem for me is that I can hear the other conversation just as much, kind of almost maybe more than the one I'm meant to be having. And I know that I'm meant to be looking at you and I know that we're having a conversation and I've learned about turn taking. And I know all the rules, but I'm so tuned into the conversation happening here. Or maybe even the conversation happening over there on a whole another table. I can hear that all so much as well. It's really, really, really hard for me to focus in here. And it's one thing when there's like one conversation there, that's pretty difficult. When there's a conversation here and a conversation here and maybe another one over there. Oh my goodness, my head wants to explode because I'm trying to process all these conversations at the same time and trying desperately to pick out the right one. It's like when my wool gets tangled. So I like to knit. And when the wool all gets tangled in the bag, all the different colors, and I know that what I need for the current project is the purple yarn of a certain weight. And I've got to find that in amongst this whole Malay of different walls. And I can kind of see it and I can kind of follow the thread, but it's a bit difficult to untangle it. And gosh, it would be just easier if someone had just handed me the one ball wrapped up neatly and there were none other nearby. So think about sound, try to think about it from the point of view of the person who may struggle rather than just what you can hear. Think about how they might interpret it and how it might make it challenging for them. Think about how the room feels. So we're going to think about how the room feels. And that will be in terms of things like temperature. That will be in terms of things like how does the chair feel under my bum? Is it comfortable? If it's hard, is that going to be something that this person is going to experience more than you might? Is the room going to feel funny under my feet? Are there lots of different textures of carpet? Just notice how the room feels. Temperature is a key one. Many of us will really tune into variances in temperature and might experience too hot and too cold more than others. Although some of us just don't at all. And on different days, we'll experience different things. But just notice, notice how does the room feel? Is it comfortable? Are there different things here that might feel uncomfortable for the person that you're thinking about? Then I would think about the smell. What can you smell in this room? What smells are going on here? Are there any strong smells? Are you somewhere near a swimming pool and there's a smell of chlorine? Is your room somewhere near where the lunches get prepared? And there's a smell of cabbage or something like that. Are there things that smell like books or plastic or chemicals? Perhaps you're a science teacher. And there's a whole bunch of chemicals making interesting smells somewhere. Just get curious about the different smells that there are. And then just try and put all these things together and just begin to wonder whether this room feels manageable, possible accessible for the person who you have in mind who is more sensory and tuned, who feels these things more sees them more hears them more notices them more, whether it's going to be a good, conducive environment to learning and working and engaging for them. In terms of getting how this might feel for us, I always think that a helpful analogy is that like asking me to work in a classroom or an open plan office when steps have not been taken to accommodate my sensory needs is the equivalent of asking a neurotypical person to get on and do their work in the middle of a nightclub where there's loads of noise and there's all the different smells and there's the sticky sticky floor and all the hubbub and the people and all that stuff going on. And you just couldn't I mean, you just couldn't could you? But classroom kind of feels like that to me. So if I as your super sensory young person don't seem to be fully focused in on my work, that might just be why. So in terms of how we do this comfort audit, because actually the next steps, once we've begun to identify the things that could be sort of challenging, will kind of write themselves and it doesn't mean you've got to make the whole room completely plain and calm for everyone. And in every bit, you might have zones and you might think about things like sympathetic seating plans that will sit the young person who has more sensory struggles in a place that is a bit quieter, that is a bit calmer, that smells a little bit less, that's that bit further from the toilets or the lunch hall, or what have you. But once we figured that out, we kind of know what to do. But to get to that point, we're either doing as I suggested at the beginning, stepping into our room, our space, our place in the shoes of that young person and trying to imagine, or of course, we can take them with us and actually have them side by side with us and say, hey, how does this feel? What can you see? What can you hear? What are the things that could potentially be an issue here? And actually going with them to a few different spaces, if they're going to access different places within your school, for example, you can begin to tune in to the different things within the environment that they tend to notice and the things that matter more to them. So I'll often do this as like a little written audit in a very sort of simple kind of way, but something that then gives me a kind of a to-do list, I guess, something that I might try to action and then explore and discuss with the young person later on. Another thing you can do is visit each other's spaces. So on an inset day, for example, you might go and do this kind of simple audit where you walk into someone else's room, preferably in a different department, and you just notice, I see, I hear, I feel, I smell and then anything else in that room and report it back to the person whose classroom or space it is. Do also, if you're going to do this, notice the good stuff too, because it's such a joy to go and visit other people's spaces and to notice what's great about them as well as the things that could be providing a bit of sensory challenge. So you might also say, and I absolutely love the way that X, you might notice that there are particular spaces and places in that room that feel particularly calm and safe, or you might find that there's a particularly useful, simple, well-explained display area that you think would be really, really helpful to young people who may also have executive functioning issues and find organizing and planning hard, for example, and that this display here might really, really help them out. So let's be really positive and proactive as well as noticing the things that might provide a bit of sensory challenge. Why it's helpful to step into each other's spaces here is because we can stop seeing, smelling, feeling the things in our own space after a while. Like, particularly smells, actually, we can become somewhat desensitized to them. So when we walk into our own space, we may not notice the smells that could be so challenging for our children and young people. So, simple as basically be aware that some of your young people that you are working with or caring for may have some sensory challenges and go to the spaces they're regularly accessing and consider from their point of view what may go on for them in a sensory capacity and are there some small steps that you might be able to take to help them to address that. To try just to bring that overwhelm just a little bit and create a slightly more even playing field so that they are more able to engage with, enjoy and thrive in that space. I really hope that there were some helpful ideas in here for you today. If you have enjoyed what you heard, then you can support my work by sharing it. So please use your socials, use your emails and so on to let people know what I'm doing if you like it. You can also support my work by heading over to Patreon where you can get early access to some of my resources and a slightly more personal and tailored response from me. And you can also support my work by asking me to come and speak at your next event or in your setting. Thank you so much to all of you for your continued support and thank you even more for all that you are doing every day for the children and young people that you work with or care for. What you do really, really matters. Okay, until next time over and out.