Sensory Play

According to the Sensory Play Research project launched in May 2009, 82 per cent of adults feel that children’s play has changed. Children are playing less outside and more with plastic and manufactured toys. Yet, this is at odds with the fact that 68 per cent of adults’ most vivid childhood memories involved sensory play outdoors. Making mud pies, rose petal perfume, building dens and jumping in puddles were just some of the sensory-rich recollections to emerge (Gascoyne, 2011).
There is a vast amount of literature surrounding the use of sensory play and how it is utilised within a pre-school setting by Early Years practitioners and for children with special educational needs (SEN). Furthermore there is also a great deal of research that

4) offers the following definition for sensory play also known as ‘Messy Play’ by some Early Years practitioners. “Sensory play provides opportunities for children and young people to use all their senses or opportunities to focus play to encourage the use of one particular sense”. The PBS (2013-2015) also recommend that “spending time stimulating children’s senses aids the children to develop cognitively, linguistically, socially and emotionally, physically and creatively” (PBS 2013-2015). Duffy (2004, p, 1) stated that children are “being creative when they use materials in new ways, combine previously unconnected materials and make discoveries that are new to them, and messy play enables children to do all these

She carried out observations on seventy seven children ranging from eight months to five years. She wanted to explore “children’s responses to sensory-rich Treasure Baskets and to map brain activity during play throughout each stage of the sensory play continuum”. She also provided questionnaires to parents and practitioners to get a snapshot on their own experiences (Gascoyne, Sensory Play Research Project, 2009). Gascoyne (2009) came to the conclusion that by offering a child an array of sensory rich objects “offers something special for children across all ages”. From her research she also found that by mapping brain activities during play “helped cast a lens on the wonders of the brain” (Gascoyne, 2012, p.