Sensory Stories - engaging all the senses
We asked our Accesible Communication Coordinator, Hannah, to write about our Sensory Stories session, and how we've moved them online in recent weeks:
Accessible Arts and Media have worked inclusively for over 35 years, working with a wide range of disabled young people and adults. Over that time, we’ve been refining our sensory programme, using music, art and movement, and in recent years we’ve added another strand, which is sensory stories.
NYMAZ CPD training
Accessible Arts and Media have worked with NYMAZ for over 15 years, on lots of different projects. They recently invited us to facilitate CPD training in Sensory Stories for their SEND Music network. The CPD involved two twilight sessions for community musicians who work with young people with SEND. The sessions’ aims were to understand what a sensory story actually feels like as a participant, and for attendees to go away with the skills to produce their own sensory story, whether this was a story that they’d written themselves, or an adapted story. As a group, we wrote our own sensory story together as a resource for the NYMAZ SEND Music network.
What is a sensory story?
A sensory story is a simple story for disabled young people and adults. The idea of a sensory story is to engage as many senses as possible, so the story will be told with a wide range of props which should include movement, sight, touch, hearing, smell and if possible, taste. Taste is a tricky one to include as you need to be mindful of allergies and some participants can’t participate in this sense and it’s important to try and ensure that everyone’s included in every prop. If the props are chosen correctly, the story should be able to be understood without the narrative.
A sensory story is short, with only around 10 sentences, to keep the attention of the participants. Each sentence will be accompanied by a prop, a movement, a sound or a piece of music to engage the participant, and the story’s told in a repetitive manner. For example, if you have a group of 8 participants (this should be the maximum number involved in a sensory story session) then the facilitator will repeat the narrative line of the story to each individual in turn, along with the prop, movement or sound.
The story itself can be adapted from another story (one of our favourites is 'We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen), or it can be something that’s been written specifically for a particular group of people, to help them understand a specific situation or learn a skill. For example, BagBooks (http://www.bagbooks.org/ a sensory story publisher) have written a story about a haircut that's proved invaluable to participants who don’t like going to the hairdresser. After this story has been told to the participant numerous times, they might find an actual hair cut a more positive experience.
Why sensory stories?
We all know that stories and books are a great resource for educational learning, learning life skills or just for entertainment. Those with learning difficulties or complex needs might not be able to benefit from mainstream books, as they’re often very wordy and if they have pictures, they may be too complex for the reader to understand. In a sensory story, the storyteller, or facilitator, will tell the story using Total Communication. This means the story’s told using the voice, emotion, facial expression, body language and props that involve all the senses with colours, smells, sounds, textures and movements.
In the sensory stories, you take things back to basic skills; you learn about things with objects and experiences, and the best way of learning is through experiences with our senses. So through sensory stories, children have developed reactions to stimuli, they may have developed their participation in shared and group activities and developed an interest in other people and it’s also a great turn-taking activity as participants have to sit and wait for their turn to experience the prop.
Moving sensory stories online
Because of Covid-19, everything has moved online. At Accessible Arts and Media, we’re doing sensory stories as part of our new online programme. The online environment is far from perfect, as one of the most important parts of a sensory story is the interaction with the participant. However, with the knowledge we have of our participants and their support networks, we’ve found that our sensory stories are proving popular with them at home.
We’ve been making a preview video ahead of each session that lets people know what props they’ll need to take part - these are always household items, or things that can be easily sourced and there’s always an alternative. And we usually include a craft activity - for example a story called Party in the Sky needs a picture of a frog and a party invitation - we provide participants with alternative ways to make these items, to keep it accessible. We then film another video of the story being told or go on Facebook Live to tell the story. Whether it’s a pre-recorded session or a live one, we include lots of repetition in the story, to allow time for the participant to explore each prop with their support network.
You can check out our online Sensory Story sessions here. And if you’d like to hear about any future sessions, you can sign up to our online sessions mailing list here.