UT Tyler graduate students empower foster, adoptive families with at-home sensory tools

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - Graduate students with UT Tyler Occupational Therapy program are using their knowledge to help foster and adoptive families in East Texas alongside The Fostering Collective.

Over 100 families signed up for the event this past Saturday at Southside Baptist Church in Tyler. Inside, they were able to to access seven different rooms dedicated to each respective sense: auditory, olfactory, oral, proprioceptive, vestibular, tactile and visual.

“It’s just so incredible to have their expertise in something like this,” said TFC co-founder Christi Sowell.

Through games and activities, parents were able to learn new ways to appropriately address areas which could become stressful for a child.

“Whether or not we realize it, we all have sensory differences, but for children especially, there’s so many things in their environment that we generally need to help them with processing,” said Traci Taylor with UT Tyler’s Occupational Therapy program. “We have students from all over the state of Texas as well as out of state. We have students coming as far as California, Utah, Oklahoma... so it’s a unique opportunity for them to plug into our community.”

Inside the visual room, Megan Webb of Lufkin was helping children with a search-and-find activity.

“This allows them to be creative and there’s a lot of different options and then we check them off with a dry erase marker,” Webb explained as she showed us the colorful handout. “Your visual skills have to be sharp just for you to be able to do daily work, handwriting, dressing yourself... just doing daily things for yourself.”

The students tell us their goal isn’t simply to identify what the senses are, but to learn how to use those areas to emotionally regulate.

“It goes way beyond vision and we really want to teach and give these kids the tools, so that they can do it themselves,” said Webb.

Across the hall, Bret Renfro of Arkansas was helping kids with oral sensory by hosting a race in which kids use straws to blow pom poms into certain color zones.

“I want their parents to feel supported and like they’re learning something good that they can use at home to help their kids just to be able to calm down and focus... and just be able to play because that’s what we want our kids to do,” said Renfro.

Along with a more controlled state of mind, the graduate students told us so many of these activities don’t come with a price tag.

“You don’t have to spend a lot of money... there’s a lot of things you can do at home,” said Webb.

Sowell describes the knowledge as a priceless gift for families working to change the lives of East Texas kids for the better.

UT Tyler students are also responsible for designing a kids sensory station in The Fostering Collective headquarters in Tyler. To learn more, click here.

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