In-home Sensory Enrichment Therapy with Mendability

The pandemic shook our world last year, and out of precaution, we pulled Charlie out of his ABA program for a few months. We knew he badly needed therapy but chose to play it safe. After a few months of Charlie being home without help from anyone, we decided to look into therapy options we could be doing at home with him. That’s when I first learned of something different and intriguing, Sensory Enrichment Therapy by Mendability. 

What is Sensory Enrichment Therapy? 

Sensory Enrichment Therapy is an effective, affordable, evidence-based, clinically-validated program designed to help individuals with autism improve their outcomes. It’s designed to increase brain function, resulting not only in improved sensory processing but also in enhanced attention span, sleep, communication skills, and many other core symptoms associated with autism.

In randomized control trials, children who added Sensory Enrichment Therapy to their existing programs were six times more likely to improve by at least five points on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale.

How is Sensory Enrichment Therapy different from Occupational Therapy?

The first thought I had while educating myself about Mendability is that it sounded similar to OT.

There is an overlap between the principles of Sensory Integration and Sensory Enrichment. Both acknowledge that there’s a wide variety of sensitivities in how signals from the environment are processed.

Sensory Enrichment Therapy is an excellent complement to Occupational Therapy because its goal is to induce a state of enhanced plasticity in the brain which helps reach deep into the root of behaviors, anxiety, processing issues, etc, and not just autism symptoms. It basically accelerates OT’s effects. SET’s focus on aiding the brain in learning to process the environment not to get so overwhelmed.

How Mendability Has Helped Our Family

I have weekly phone calls with our therapist at Mendability, where we go over Charlie’s struggles and progress. She gives me a few exercises personalized to Charlie’s needs, and I do them with him every day for two weeks. I do those exercises at home, twice a day, on my schedule. Finding the time to fit it all in was the main obstacle to other telehealth options I saw for therapy. It would’ve been challenging to do hours of therapy every day, and I know many parents are in the same situation. With Mendability, I choose when I do the exercises, as long as I do them daily.

Charlie’s back to ABA therapy now, so we do his exercises for ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the evening.

Here are a few exercise examples of Mendability exercises:

Hold Ice Then Poke Play-Doh

Here, Charlie is touching ice cubes before dipping his fingers one by one into Play-Doh.

Walk on a 2×4 Beam

The ultimate goal for this exercise is Charlie doing it blindfolded. Right now, we’re working on walking down the beam while holding a teddy bear.

Pairing Scents With Textures 

Here, Charlie smells several fragrances while touching a specific texture. There is a similar exercise where we have him smell fruit, see fruit, and taste the fruit.

Most exercises are quickly done with materials you have at home.

Charlie’s been doing impressively well in ABA these past few months, and while I can’t be sure because he also has a great team of ABA therapists, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I believe Mendability is playing a role. He’s more focused. He’s happier and less agitated. He eats well, and he sleeps better too.

As parents, we’re always looking for ways to improve our kids’ outcomes. If any of this intrigues you, Mendability has several therapy plans to choose from, and there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee if it’s not a fit for you and your child. For those of us who’ve tried a lot and who always want more, there’s not much to lose. Maybe this will be the one that facilitates that big next step. 

CHECK IT OUT HERE and use discount code AUTISMCAFE