To help your child deal with her sensory integration problems, you've learned all sorts of strategies and ways to adjust her environment. Now, try using some of those strategies on yourself.

You may already be doing that without knowing it — chewing gum for proprioceptive input, listening to music through headphones for strong auditory input, wearing clothes that give appropriate stimulation to your tactile sense. You may read with a bookmark under a line of type to reduce visual distraction, or never go out in bright light without sunglasses, or insist on silence when you need to concentrate, and not think a thing of it.

Now that you've seen some of the tools and exercises used to aid children with sensory integration disorder, though, you may want to try them for yourself. Consider the following possibilities for the tactile sense:

• Try seam-free socks like those offered for adults as well as children by Sensory Comfort. The catalog also offers bras, tank tops, and bicycle shorts designed with flat seams and comfortable fits for people with tactile sensitivity.

• Keep a fidget toy like a Koosh ball, beanbag, hacky sack ball, stress squeeze toy, putty, or even a homemade item like marbles or rice placed in a sock and sewn shut. These can provide good sensory input when you need it, or they can help relax you if your senses are overstimulated.

• A small hand-held massager or vibrating toy may wake up an underresponsive tactile sense, or soothe an overreactive one by allowing you to pinpoint where and how firmly the input is administered. A shower massager or a vibrating chair cushion may also be good ways to get some calming deep pressure.

Consider the following possibilities for the visual sense:

• Books on tape, now available for an enormous range of fiction and nonfiction titles, are a good option if you find reading visually overstimulating. You can also download recorded books into an iPod through the iTunes store, or into a wide range of MP3 players, PDAs, and cell phones.

• The bookmarks from Really Good Stuff with a strip of yellow film that were recommended for your child may also be useful for you. Whether you prefer viewing the letters through the colored film or using the bright color as an underlining accent, the visual contrast will help make following lines of type easier.

• Try using bins and boxes to minimize clutter and make it easy to keep things somewhat organized and out of sight. Label them with words or symbols if necessary to help keep similar things together.

Consider the following possibilities for the auditory sense:

• If you have trouble with loud noises, or with tolerating the overamplified sound in movie theaters, concert venues, or your teenager's bedroom, consider a pair of earplugs. The kind designed for hunters, found in sporting-goods stores, might be a good choice.

• Just as your child may have trouble distinguishing your voice from background noise in a busy room, you may not be able to hear children asking you questions from somewhere other than your immediate field of attention. Let your family know that you will probably give a better response if they come directly to you.

• A white noise machine, or one that plays restful nature sounds, may help you relax or get to sleep.

Consider the following possibilities for the vestibular sense:

• While you may not be able to easily sit on the swings at the playground and get the same kind of good vestibular input your child does, a porch swing or similar outdoor swinging or gliding seating may do the trick.

• Indoors, invest in a rocking chair and put it someplace other than a baby's room so that you can rock in it at the end of the day and get some soothing vestibular input.

• A large inflatable exercise ball, the kind you can sit on or lean your body against, can be a very therapeutic and calming item to use as seating in front of the television — the constant work at keeping your body balanced gives a lot of good input to your vestibular sense.

Consider the following possibilities for the proprioceptive sense:

• Wrist and ankle weights used for exercising can give you calming proprioceptive input at times when you particularly need stress relief or concentration. A weighted blanket may improve your ability to fall asleep without tossing and turning.

• You may enjoy jumping on a trampoline as much as your child does. Try a small exercise trampoline with a handle to keep you from jumping right off.

• Air-filled seat cushions can give you some needed movement while you're sitting, while not drawing a lot of attention to it.

Occupational therapy catalogs are full of tools and toys that offer sensory integration stimulation and relief. Browse through websites and look for things that seem to fit a need that you feel. You may find solutions you never thought of or knew existed. Sporting-goods stores are also good sources of things that, while not specifically intended for sensory integration therapy, can do duty in that area.