ABSTRACT
As a fan of messy play, sometimes a lack of quantitative measures can make it difficult to spot potential patterns, frustratingly clouding individual experiences. Drawing from world of Play Therapy, this chapter introduces a series of lenses for viewing and quantifying children's material engagements. With an open mind and a playful approach, most materials can be used for sensory-rich encounters. For a child or adult with sensory processing issues, touching some resources can be so distressing that prospect of messy play fills them with dread. Whether sticky wet substances, dry powdery resources or any combination of textures is problem, this continuum from wet to dry qualities reminds us of the physical challenge facing tactile-defensive adults and children. An aversion to mess among children is also increasingly commonplace as a learnt behaviour. An awareness of the wealth of textural messy play possibilities available may be key to children's inclusion, as wetter, stickier, messier resources tend to elicit more negative reactions.
