Dental therapist Victoria Wilson draws inspiration from daughters Sophia and Alice to refine strategies for developing children’s proprioceptive senses and encouraging them to brush their teeth.
A comparative study of multi-sensory and traditional toys in child education published in March highlighted that activating multiple senses has the potential to collectively amplify children’s engagement in the learning process (Fan et al, 2024). The study also suggested that children subjected to multi-sensory stimuli – as opposed to monotonous activities – were more likely to gain a deeper understanding and retain information.
Children’s cognitive development operates on visual, auditory, kinaesthetic or experiential stimuli, with information assimilated differently according to individual learning styles, preferences and challenges.
Toothbrushing has been referred to as ‘a sensory adventure that is beneficial to children’s healthy development’ in advice to speech therapists (Levavasseur, 2020). The more children brush their teeth, the more they recognise the oral stimuli, which subsequently reduces their anxiety.
Brushing also improves the children’s proprioceptive senses which are foundational to their individual growth. It provides them with multiple coherent oral sensory inputs. This reinforces the development of motor gestures for opening the mouth, moving the tongue and pursing the lips. In other words, it considerably helps with the functions of both eating and talking.
Easier said than done
However, as every parent will attest, getting a child to brush their teeth is easier said than done. Resistance is a recurring challenge in every household. Some children struggle with what they perceive as an overstimulated mouth (hypersensitivity), or a decreased sensation of where the toothbrush moves in their mouth (hyposensitivity). Others lack guidance from parents who might benefit from developing effective brushing skills themselves.
A plethora of communication strategies and tools have been developed to encourage brushing and make it an enjoyable experience for children. I would also applaud the work of so many of my peers who relentlessly try and motivate their young patients – and their parents.
As a registered dental therapist, children’s oral health topic has always been very dear to my heart. Having my two daughters has been an eye opener and made me realise how challenging brushing time is for parents.
Helping children to brush
When my daughters received their first Sonicare4Kids toothbrushes back in 2022, they instinctively moved them as if they were manual brushes. This validated my presence in the bathroom using my own Sonicare to guide them. It soon became apparent that their engagement and learning process called for a multitude of sensory strategies to make them assimilate the understanding of what brushing was for and how to brush effectively.
Literature exploring children’s engagement reported a greater understanding and mental retention of what an apple means to a child when they can visually process it whilst involving gustatory and tactile senses, compared with a child who has only been able to read about it (Naufal and Suzianti, 2019). I can certainly relate to this during brushing time.
The Philips Sonicare4Kids is coupled with an app featuring an engaging cartoon character to help encourage effective and consistent brushing behaviour. I initially chose not to introduce it to the girls as I wanted to observe how they were adapting to the use of an electric toothbrush themselves. Later on, the app proved a massive success as this further built on their engagement and allowed them to evolve to the next brushing level.
Toothbrushing with Sophia and Alice
Over the past years, I became motivated to create a book to inspire children’s toothbrushing time myself, that I have just published for sale on Amazon. I have been immensely privileged to involve my daughters in the development of a book project to support children, parents and carers at tooth brushing time and initiate positive brushing habits for an audience aged between one and five.
I chose to include two main elements. A teddy bear which is easily transferrable to emulating real life imaginative play and a song which can be repeated in children’s own play time. I hope that the visual cues from the book, the reinforcement from the auditory version, and the tactile feedback from a brush like the Sonicare4kids will provide the right multi-sensory approach to enrich children’s learning about brushing. Additionally there are further resources that families can access.
A big thank you to the British Society of Dental Hygiene and Therapy (BSDHT) for supporting my book, and Philips for inspiring me by providing Sonicare4Kids brushes for my girls. This means a lot to me.
Learn more about and buy Victoria’s book.
For more information about Sonicare4Kids visits Philips’ Online Store.
References
- Fan et al (2024) Beyond play: a comparative study of multi-sensory and traditional toys in child education. Frontiers in Education. Speech therapy and teeth cleaning
- Levavasseur (2020) Speech therapy and teeth cleaning www.oralite-alimentaire.fr/orthophonie-et-lavage-de-dents
- Naufal and Suzianti (2019) Design thinking approach for product innovation design of educational toys. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Education, Mathematics and Computer Science (ICEMC), United States: IEEE, 69 – 74.
This article is sponsored by Philips.
