Improving Sensory Skills? Learn and Play with These Toys

Inspired by inclusivity, the knowledgeable staff at TFH Canada provides products that will boost everyone’s skill set, no matter their sensory preferences.

For many, it’s typical to take their body’s senses for granted. Even though they’re our live-in interpreters that determine the way we experience the world, people don’t often take time to truly contemplate how each sense is working.

Sensory play is stigmatized as juvenile or for those with heightened sensory preferences. In truth, since no two people experience their surroundings in the same way, learning more about one’s senses can lead to informative self-discovery.

“The most important part of normalizing and increasing accessibility to sensory play is awareness and education,” says Archie Allison, Canadian Hall of Famer and a legendary figure at Toronto’s Variety Village, a centre that helps people with a disability develop a healthy lifestyle through sports, fitness, and physical activity. “There’s something magical about bringing attention to your senses.” Allison credits Toronto’s Variety Village’s program’s accessibility largely to TFH Canada’s sensory education toys.

TFH: therapy, freedom, happiness

With a strong belief in the power of play, TFH Toys was founded in the United Kingdom by Douglas Garrard and Tony Tidmarsh through the realization that not all kids felt included in generic sports and play situations. Despite words of warning and minor set-backs, they became market leaders, opening offices in Canada, the United States, and Sweden.

Along with designing and manufacturing innovative sensory solutions, client care is the company’s top priority. “What sets their staff apart is that they have lived experience and they’re immersed in our world,” explains Kaela Millar, an Academic Leader at Mohawk College’s cutting-edge Multi-Sensory Lab. “They provide firsthand support, guidance, and knowledge to help you get results.”

The company proudly creates fun, educational, and affordable supports and toys that are great on their own or as part of sensory rooms, which are “spaces to wordlessly communicate which boost memory care, mental health, relationship and empathy development, self-confidence, and so much more,” according to Allison.*

Good for anybody

Sensory play benefits everyone. It helps kids and those with special needs to feel included in ways they may never have before and to overcome obstacles. It can be eye-opening for families, providing them with transferrable skills that can help in other areas of their child’s life.

“Taking time to reflect on how you perceive the world, and what you react positively and negatively to, leads to better self-understanding,” says Millar. “No matter who you are, it’ll teach you how to best regulate and support yourself.”