Children with Special Needs – Sensory Storytimes

Pennsylvania’s Public Libraries are striving to include Sensory Storytimes as part of their programming for children with special needs. The following resources provide background information and resources on sensory storytimes to help with planning and delivery.

• Peruse this article from American Libraries magazine, titled Storytime for the Spectrum: Libraries add services for children with autism by Megan Cottrell, for the “how and why” of including this type of storytime for your community. Megan even includes a list of tips for getting started!

• This blog post from ALSC has more tips for getting started with sensory storytimes in the form of a “How-to Guide.”

• Select books for your Special Needs Storytimes with the help of guidelines from this ALSC blog. For actual lists of books to choose from, see this post from ALSC.

• ALSC also has a series of five articles on Programming for Children with Special Needs that together or separately provide a wealth of information from an expert in sensory programming, Tricia Bohanon Twarogowski. Watch Tricia’s 2018 video to see a sensory storytime in action!

For additional resources, check out this Pinterest board dedicated to the topic of Sensory Storytime. This board is curated by members of the ALSC membership.