Sensory toys stimulate children's senses and contribute to the physical and mental well-being of your child. Growing up is not easy for every child, sensory toys can help to give a child a push in the right direction. With the help of sensory toys, a child can better understand and process all the stimuli that come in through their senses. Below we explain exactly what sensory toys are.

What is sensory toys?

Sensory toys are special toys. Sensory toys are different types of toys that contribute to stimulating the senses, sensory means sensory after all.

At school we learn that we have five senses, but in reality we have eight. These eight senses help us perceive and process stimuli from our environment. Think for example of interoception and your vestibular system (balance organ). Interoception relates to the physiological state of your body, think of experiencing hunger or thirst. The vestibular system helps you perceive changes in gravity, are you hanging upside down, are you standing still or are you in a car? These are perceptions that the vestibular system sends to your brain.

All these perceptions that our senses take in are called stimuli. Sensory toys help a child to explore and understand different types of stimuli in a challenging way.

Even without toys, a child can practice with stimuli. For example, let your child play with different textures, think of clay, sand, mud, water, etc. Or let your child taste new types of food.

Sensory processing disorder

Through our eight senses, all kinds of stimuli enter our brains. But not all children can process these stimuli equally well, so they have difficulty processing stimuli. These children can have difficulty understanding their body. Consequences of this are:

• clumsiness
• Car sickness
• Regularly bumping into objects
• Bad posture
• Weak muscles
• Difficulty eating
• And difficulty with many other everyday skills

Do you recognize any of these characteristics in your child? Then it is a good idea to let your child experiment with different stimuli, for example using sensory toys.