Every day, at a musk-melon-colored building near Okayama Station, children gather to play in a rather unusual-looking indoor playground. Guru Guru Meron Shima (Twirly Melon Island) is a privately-run day-care center for autistic and other special-needs children that started up in July. It is also, most likely, the best-equipped sensory therapy room in Japan.
Sensory integration therapy is used by some health workers to help children with sensory integration disorder (DSI). Children with this disorder have difficulties processing sensory information, and this causes problems with learning, development and behavior. Though the condition is most common in autistic children, what's often less known is that seemingly normal children can also suffer from sensory problems.
California-based Dr. Jean Ayres, who developed sensory therapy in the 1960s, divided sensory activities into three major areas: those that help children overcome the fear of touch; those that help children overcome gravitational insecurity to improve balance and coordination; and more physically intensive activities for improving body awareness and strengthening muscle tone.
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