Puerto Rico's Education Department signs a collaborative agreement to address Sensory Processing Disorder in students

The secretary of the Department of Education (DE), Eliezer Ramos Parés, signed a collaborative agreement with the entity 5 Sentidos PR for the expansion of support and guidance services for families of students with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD).

The purpose is to provide guidance resources and educational workshops to families of children and young people with the disorder, which occurs when the central neurological system is not capable of adequately interpreting and organizing the information captured by the five senses (touch, smell, taste, hearing and vision).

 A person with SPD has difficulty processing and acting on information received through the senses, which creates challenges in executing countless daily tasks, such as sleeping, eating, doing well in school or at work.

The workshops will be offered at the island level with the collaboration of pediatric neurologists, psychologists and psychiatrists, professionals in auditory, visual, behavior and conduct processing, occupational and speech therapists.

In addition, the DE and 5 Sentidos PR intend to strengthen collaboration in the components of the health system to increase the number of families of children and youth with special health needs and/or intellectual and developmental deficiencies so that they receive the best services, evidence-based.

 “This agreement will impact hundreds of families, and will give way to increasing the number of professionals in the teaching profession who will be able to train them on SPD. Thus, they will be able to manage and understand children with this condition, which will help students in the socio-educational process and, simultaneously, will train our teachers with tools that will serve as axes of change in thousands of Puerto Rican homes,” Ramos explained.