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Helping Hyperactive Kids - A Sensory Integration Approach: Techniques and Tips for Parents and Professionals

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Helping Hyperactive Kids-A Sensory Integration Approach by Horowitz and Rost is a good book for anyone working with or a parent of hyperactive kids. It explains how the sensory systems in a child works and then gives TIP's for helping your child (infant, toddler, preschooler, teenagers and even adults can do to stimulate the senses. My favorite chapter was six, Tips of Dealing with Your Hyperactive Child. It had how to communicate, organize the day and foster calmness. In the back is a questionnaire for parents to "determine if a sensory processing problem is occurring in their children." This is a good book for my professional shelf. R. Stutz Foster Mom and Preschool Teacher

This book is very well written. It is meant for parents and teachers and is done in an easy to read and succinct manner. It touches on every aspect of sensory integration. You will find information here on smell, taste, touch, vision, the effect of the environment in general, and more. It wone me over with the sentence All children need discipline. It has been my experience that many parents whose children receive a diagnosis of anything that affects behavior, simply throw up their hands in resignation and say "There is nothing I can do, he/she has¬¬ _______________. This benefits no one, least of all the child. I always wonder if these parents have ever considered that their child will one day be an adult, with these same issues and their lives will be more difficult than it has to be. It is hard work to raise any child, more difficult when the child needs a little extra help. The information in this book will help the parents identify possible problems and give suggestions on how to begin to help their child.

There is a lot of very useful information here, as well as explanations. It is not a book that says do this, because I say so, it is one that says do this, and here is why. It tells you how to do it, when to do it and gently guides you through the difficulties that you will face while you do it.

I work in a special needs school. None of my own children had issues of this kind. I see sensory issues on a daily basis, often exhibited in the most extreme ways. I have attended in-services on sensory integration, and work with it every day.

Helping Hyperactive Kids- A Sensory Integration Approach is a book is meant to address these issues in typical children, but I feel that it is also a valuable resource for me, and the team that I work with. I have already benefited from the information provided.

Dear Reader,
I have a special interest in this book and one of its authors. Cecil Rost was our son Christopher's therapist. She and this book have helped in making Christopher's life better. He still has a long way to go but using this book has helped us understand how we could and do help him and his sensory difficulties as they relate to food, noise, texture and the world outside the home. Thank you Cecil, You and your book are the BEST Linda

All kids are balls of boundless energy - but some are more so than others. "Helping Hyperactive Kids - A Sensory Integration Approach: Techniques for Parents and Professionals" is a guide to helping hyper children without resorting to drugs with nasty side effects such as Ritalin. Explaining why hyperactive children are so hyper, authors Lynn Horowitz and Cecile Rost discuss that controlling them is very much possible with the right methods, which can be used by anyone, be they therapist or parent. "Helping Hyperactive Kids - A Sensory Integration Approach" is a top pick for the parent who wants to help without drugs.

Reviewed by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views (9/07)


A basic introduction to the approach of sensory integration is presented in this collaborative effort, "Helping Hyperactive Kids," by Lynn J. Horowitz and Cecile Rost. Written for the layperson as well as the professional, the book gives a better understanding and insight into the behavioral patterns and factors that might cause the hyperactive behavior of the child. The book includes a study of how the brain works, and helps the reader in their understanding the main sensory systems, of balance, touch, hearing, sight, feeling, taste, and smell.

The purpose and process of sensory integration therapy are developed and include the environment and atmosphere needed to make the treatment a success, play as therapy, and the structure of the treatment.

The tips for dealing with the hyperactive child are especially designed to help the parent. They include tips on communicating, organizing, and nurturing calmness. The tips also provide suggestions for giving directions, for adapting toys and games and for negotiating in the classroom.

Well-documented with complete endnotes, a sequential format, a complete table of contents, a helpful index, and detailed case studies make this book a useful reference tool. A full chapter is dedicated to a questionnaire for parents. This checklist will help the parent determine if a sensory processing problem is occurring in their child.

"Helping Hyperactive Kids" is clearly written for the parent looking for a non-drug, child-friendly intervention program for the hyperactive child. This is a hands-on guide with activities, tips and techniques for the child with learning disabilities.

Received book free of charge.

A first English language translation from the original Dutch version of `Help, een druk kind !' (2004), this volume introduces a therapeutic system pioneered by Dr. A. Jean Ayres, an occupational therapist and developmental psychologist, in an attempt to assist parents, caregivers and therapists, in coping with the impulsiveness, restlessness, hyperactivity and inattentiveness of the hyperactive child. Ayres' sensory integration (SI) therapeutic stance views (presumes) such a child to possess information-processing problems endemic to their intrinsic nervous system functioning, and is championed by the current authors, Horowitz & Rost, both of whom use SI therapy techniques in their daily clinical practice. Written for the non-specialist, these authors afford their eight chapters with a focus upon assisting the hyperactive child in particular, and rather than proposing that one deals with the presenting symptoms alone (behavioural problems), they suggest focusing instead upon the neurophysiological level, by improving each child's capacity for integrating sensory input. The repeated claim throughout the book, is that sensory integration problems make it difficult for some children to select and respond appropriately to everyday stimuli or events in their environment, and in turn, thus prevent/hinder development of their learning and socialisation skills. It is this problem that SI therapy is here introduced to solve.

Clearly written and easy to read, the authors introduce both theoretical issues and practical skills, with simple (perhaps sometimes too oversimplified ?) discussions concerning how our brains process sensory stimuli, and how each of our sensory awareness channels (incl. vestibular, tactile, auditory, visual, and proprioceptive systems; our sense of smell and taste) operate at different stages of child development. More importantly perhaps, each of the core chapters offer practical and helpful advice for immediate behavioural monitoring and intervention, including the use of calming techniques, deep pressure application and so forth, in assisting hyperactive children to function in a more appropriate ways, both at home or in school. Some of the `tips' for dealing with aberrant/disruptive behaviour are presented in `case study boxes' occasionally placed within the text pages, and may appear distracting to some readers (better organization/layout would easily remedy this), though largely so presented in order to provide examples of real clinical cases relevant to the adjacent text information each time. Indeed, and although overall convincing, the current reviewers remain concerned re the lack of independent empirical evidence and controlled outcome-studies available in support of the assessment and evaluation of SI therapy, perhaps lending many readers to feel doubt and uncertainty for the effectiveness of SI therapy in countering the hyperactive child's aberrant behaviours. Indeed, this book would be more appealing if clearer evidence of the more successful claims of SI therapy were also presented, together with extensive case studies, thus also providing a more interesting and grounded discussion of the effectiveness of SI as being a more unique therapeutic tool.

The final chapters of the book also offer informative reference tools in its conclusion. A well-documented and published research listing allows the reader to learn more about studies which in particular have involved ADHD children (given the title !). However, the potentially useful behaviour checklists provided will by no means allow parents, or those practitioners who work with children, to adequately self-diagnose the extent of any ADD/ADHD spectrum conditions presenting for intervention panning. Lacking in clear guidance as to the use of such assessment tools as provided in the final chapter `A Questionnaire for Parents', this inclusion was perhaps both premature, and is clearly in need of additional text with regards how one might `score', or at least interpret, the significance of the results obtained with its use - an inclusion in the current reviewers view possibly a dangerous option to have provided the concerned reader/parent, if completing this questionnaire without informed professional advise to hand !

This said, the core introductory content of the book does, however, provide a good Primer for anyone wishing to know more about Sensory Integration (SI) Therapy, and will certainly be of some value to anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of hyperactive children. The stated purpose of SI therapy is simply to "improve your child's ability to process and organize sensory information" (p. 89), and proposes therapy techniques which necessarily engage each child (usually 1:1) in client-centred, playful and exploratory activities, specifically designed for the achievement of success and enjoyment of pleasure. SI therapy is thus surely a pleasurable supplemental form of treatment. Many a hyperactive child is likely to benefit from such a pleasurable intervention as SI therapy, if provided by a trained therapist, as a non-medicating child-centered therapeutic intervention.

Failing this, however, it is always useful to encourage your child to raise themselves from the sofa/bedroom, and to `get out there', and play some active sports such as football or soccer, which will readily enhance sensory-motor integration skills, whilst also burning off a significant amount of pent up nervous energy. DIY SI therapy at minimum cost !


Anthony R. Dickinson [Centre for Brain Disorders, Inst. Neurosci (Chinese Academy of Sciences)]
Joy Yip [Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)].

February, 2010.