From the NARA Public Information Room
The Caring Touch
by Carolynne Stevens

Human Touch

Now, we come to the part of the human need for tactile connection that is, to make a pun, really "touchy" in today's society. Here's the dilemma. Human beings need human touch for their emotional and mental development and well-being — sometimes even for their will to live.

Human beings need to have all five senses stimulated all the time. Touch is one of the five ways the brain receives stimulating information to enable it to develop, maintain and repair itself. Touch has the first, most direct and powerful effect on the brain's programming and re-programming activity. Accordingly, touch, including its inherent kinesthetic (movement) stimulation, is particularly important in working with young children and with adults with brain impairments.

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The Gift of Touch

These children in many cases are developmentally delayed due to lack of touch and intellectual stimulus. In addition, we taught massage to doctors and nurses at the hospital, worked with abandoned babies and went on home visits to families in the community.

The definition of touch is the sense by which objects or stimuli are perceived through physical contact. As humans, we greet each other by shaking hands or embrace with a hug. We comfort each other with an arm around a shoulder or by wiping away a tear. ... orphans desperately need this gift of touch. It is hard to understand why something so simple as touch offers so much hope and yet the lack of it has clearly impacted these children.