sensory jump night - Pump It Up

FYI there is a "Sensory Jump Night" scheduled for February 21st at the Pump It Up in Shelby Township, MI.

From their website:
Exclusively for families with special needs children. Special guest(s) will present information on therapy options available. Parents can participate and network with other families. Cost: $8.00/child- $6.00/sibling RSVP requested.

http://www.pumpitupparty.com/mi/shelby-township/calendar-p8q82.htm

Captain Underpants - sensory delight?

"Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks." ~ Samual Johnson

Everytime that I have seen the Captain Underpants books I have thought, "Who would let their kids read a book about a superhero in underpants with villians named things like Professor PoopyPants?". My boy is now 8 years old and the books totally make sense to me!

What other way to get a kid to crave reading than to give them a book filled with the weird things boys obsess about (or at least my boy!). He cannot put the first book down, which is excellent AND he is comprehending! I pretty much expected these results though...I figured the books would become an obsession due to their content.

However, what I did not expect to find was a cute little sensory "game". Flip-O-Rama -- basically there are instructions you follow (1 sensory point), you hold one page down with the left hand and flip the right page quickly with your thumb and forefinger on your right hand (12 sensory points here!), all the while watching the image on the right pages and focusing your eyes until you see both images become animated (at least another 12 sensory points there!).

When we first tried it, I couldn't get him to close his thumb and forefinger around the page on his own...he was totally confused as to what we were trying to do. Once he figured it out he thought it was so cool and taught his sister how to do it as well.

Super cute, super cute!

fun with sensory!

"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful." ~ Mark Victor Hansen

We did a lot of fun stuff at sensory therapy tonight that I just must share with all of you!

Bike riding: We have been working for some time on coordination for boy. One of the struggles he really has is riding a bike and it really bothers him; he is really hoping to be able to ride a 2 wheel, (or 2 liter bike if you ask him) without training wheels, by this summer. To work on this his therapist has him doing laps on a two wheel scooter. At first it was really hard for him to balance on it at all, but now he can go almost 5 seconds without stepping off. You may think this sounds pretty obvious right? Well with boy even the idea of getting on one of these scooters was too overwhelming for him. That's the fun thing though with having someone else that your child works with -- for some ODD reason they are sometimes more trusting of another adult who feels confident they can ride the scooter without fail. Go figure! At our next appointment he may be ready to move to the two wheel bike to try it out. I can't wait to see him do it!

Shaving cream fun: playing with shaving cream is an excellent sensory task! Take it a step further and add glue to the shaving cream. Adding glue allows them to create a picture on construction paper that will stay white and fluffy'ish. SUPER exciting and fun!!

Sticky paint: next time you play with fingerpaint, shake things up a bit and add maple syrup to it (and if you really want to get kooky add sand or glitter to give it a gritty feel). Adding the syrup makes the paint sticky to paint with and also sticky when it dries...it is really interesting and fun.

great sensory task...

Making paper airplanes!

It requires hand/eye coordination, concentrating on instructions, and manipulating the fingers to make the creases....and....all you need is a piece of paper!

We went on a fieldtrip to the Henry Ford Museum and they have an airplane exhibit where you can make different paper airplanes and then fly them through these targets...quite fun.

today's sensory therapy update

"A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner."~ Anonymous

Today's therapy was really great. Ms. Sue is working with boy on his handwriting, continuing to focus on strengthening his hands.

Next week she is going to put together Callirobics for boy to try. Basically it is handwriting to classical music. He won't necessarily be forming the letters correctly, but will instead kind of be doodling while listening to the music...trying to pace himself to the sound of the music, which is supposed to slow him down in his writing. It is supposed to teach the hand strokes that make up handwriting to the quiet beat of the music. I think it sounds very exciting!

fun sensory things to do

"Art...is an attempt to bring order out of chaos." ~ Stephen Sondhein

We have been working with the Cheerios cookbook that our sensory therapist gave us and there are a lot of fun things in it to be done that can equate to some sensory fun times.

Tonight we made these cute little cheerio peanut butter sprinkle balls. This works some sensory in because boy had to form the balls, which are uber sticky and ick, and then roll them in sprinkles...this is after he helped measure and pour all of the ingredients.

His sensory therapist suggests having him help make different food and teach him that when we cook, we must taste what we make...try to force him to start wanting to try a variety of food, broaden his tastes.

Here is the recipe for cheerio peanut butter sprinkle balls.

1/3c of sugar
1/2c of light corn syrup
1/2c peanut butter
3c cheerios
sprinkles

Line a cookie sheet with wax paper.
Mix the sugar and corn syrup in a saucepan over medium heat, stir until near boiling.
Add peanut butter and stir until thoroughly combined.
Stir in cheerios, mix until well coated.
Form into little balls, roll in the sprinkles and set aside for about a 1/2 hour until they have hardened.

Voila! Enjoy!

sensory therapy update - this past week

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

*highlight - classical music really is calming..use it and use it often!

Wednesday boy came out of sensory therapy wearing this huge contraption set of headphones on his ears and something resembling a back brace wrapped about his waist. It was very hard to keep myself from laughing! The therapist was walking behind him chuckling as he walked up to me and started talking extra loud (much louder than his normal level of loud).

Ms. Sue decided to start him with therapeutic listening to help with some of his anxiety and noise sensitivity issues. She was very impressed that he knew the music was Mozart before she even told him, which started a huge discussion (on his part) all about the wonders of the fabulous Baby Einstein...one of his huge previous addictions. I am surprised (and beyond thankful) that the therapeutic listening did not prompt a regression to the world of Baby Einstein...I'm not sure I could survive that!).

Ok so here is the info part - the therapeutic listening system teaches the body how to block out the noise that is disruptive. Has anyone ever said "Hey, do you hear that ringing sound?" and before they asked you didn't hear it, but after they asked you realize it was there the whole time? The fact that you did not hear it meant that your body, on its own, was blocking out the disruptive noise so you could continue doing whatever it was you were doing. Some children do not have the ability to do that. Therapeutic listening is supposed to teach their ear muscles to drown out that noise.

The headphones and CDs are what the program are composed of. We supply the portable CD player, which he can wear on himself so he can continue with his usual activities. The headphones are special in that they provide different frequency levels (high/low)in each headphone, sound comes in from different parts of the headphones and during the music it will change from normal to scratchy to staticy.

Last year I priced the therapeutic listening programs when we first really started seeing issues with noise. They were over $300. For this program through our sensory therapy we rent out the equipment for $10 for 2 weeks at a time. The $10 is refundable once the equipment is returned. Ms. Sue is going to get it ready for him to take home next week...I am super excited to start this and ESPECIALLY at the start of the year!!!

On another note, can I just express again how much we love our sensory therapist. Boy noticed a cheerios cookbook in her office and was so taken with it she let him borrow it for the week. We came across alot of really good sensory activities and have been working on them.

Sensory cheerio activities that are fun:

1. String cheerios on pipe cleaner to make bracelets
2. Make pipecleaner people and string cheerios on them
3. Make a mask and glue cheerios to it -- make sure you use the palming technique where he picks up the cheerios with one hand (thumb and forefinger), palms them, then manipulates them out of his hand with his thumb and forefinger again to place them on the glue.
   

fingerpaint is evil..or at least mildly annoying

"When I was a kid, a book I read advised young artist to be themselves. That decided it for me. I was a corny kind of guy, so I went in for corn." ~ Walt Disney

I pulled out the fingerpaint tonight. I could not understand why it was so hard to find, hidden deep in the darkest recesses of a closet. I guess the last time I put it there I should have attached a note to it to remind myself why I had hidden it so well...or maybe just my face with X's for eyes...surely that would have reminded me of what I was about to get myself into...

The most important thing that I had forgotten about fingerpaint is the fact that boy loves to play with it, but hates the feel of it...and the two forces pushing against eachother (the love/hate relationship of it) lead to meltdowns of astronomical proportions...

Thus began my night.

So, the kids start to play with the fingerpaint. Here is how it went...

Girls:
1) hands in paint, oh neat
2) swirl swirl swirl
3) mix some colors, oh neat
4) swirl swirl swirl

Boy:
1) hand in paint, ick blah ick wash hands
2) hand in paint and try to quickly swirl, ick blah ick wash hands
3) hand in paint, great now the colors are mixed together, ick blah ick wash hands
4) hand in paint, now Ive made the color of poop, ick blah ick wash hands and chant "poop" over and over again with a little squawking on the side.

It went over and over again until he was too frustrated and started to meltdown. Into the shower he went, but not before he smeared his last remaining bit of messy fingerpaint hands down the hallway, through the bathroom.

The mess doesn't bother me because it cleans up easily. But here's the question...should I have "forced" him to continue while hoping the eventually he would get used to the feel of the fingerpaint and wouldn't need to wash his hands and could then go on with the "loving it" part that he was trying to do? Or does the fact that a horrible meltdown was approaching mean that it is right to stop?

Things that make you go, hmmmm......

have you brushed before?

So, in sensory therapy Wednesday the therapist decided that we should start brushing boy to help ease his anxiety issues. Lately he has had a lot of worries so hopefully this will start to help. This is what the brush looks like that our therapist gave us.

The documentation that I have states that this is done to:

• modify behaviors related to defensiveness
• enhance body awareness
• maintain a calm state of arousal
• apply an accumulation of somato-sensory input to help organize the central nervous system
  

So, here's how it goes.

1. For two weeks we need to brush him every 2 hours, except when he is sleeping.
2. We need to start with one hand, brush three strokes -- hand, palm, forearm, inner arm, upper arm, across the shoulders, behind the neck, down the next arm, hand palm.
3. Then move down a thigh, calf, down the next thigh, calf
4. Do not brush feet, inner arm (like armpit area) or inner thigh as those areas are too sensitive

After brushing you must followup with joint compressions.

1. Joint compressions on the wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee and ankle
2. Line up the joints and pump to a count of 10 at each one

If they aren't willing to sit for the joint compressions, have them do push ups against a wall and jumping jacks to get the same joint compression. The joint compressions are key. Key points:

• keep the brush held horizontally to the arm and leg and apply sufficient pressure
• use a brushing motion; slowly brushing, not scrubbing the skin and rotate the arm/leg while brushing
  
• brush no more than 3 times over any one area
• avoid any itch, scratch, outch, tickle or light touch
• do not lift the brush at the end of each stroke
  
• never brush the head, chest or stomach
  
• the complete routine should take no more than 3 minutes

One of the biggest things I am hoping that this will help with is nail clipping. Boy HATES to have his nails clipped...it's really bad. So ideally, if we have a stressful situation coming up or I know that I want to clip his nails on a certain day, we will need to start the brushing three days before and then brush right before the event. Hopefully this will help keep his anxiety level down and help him relax.

sensory therapy - evaluation results

"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today." ~ Stacia Tauscher

We had the completion of the sensory evaluation today and the results are not good, although it is pretty much what I was expecting.

He scored at a level of 2 year old and 4 year old. Wow right?

The testing was based on the BOT-2 testing system and is scored based on the below:

• Fine Motor Precision—7 items (e.g., cutting out a circle, connecting dots) - scored as 4 y/o
  
• Fine Motor Integration—8 items (e.g., copying a star, copying a square) - scored well and on target for his age. He was able to perceive the object and duplicate it...there were issues with the way his lines overlapped or curved due to the motor skill issues
  
• Manual Dexterity—5 items (e.g., transferring pennies, sorting cards, stringing blocks) - scored as a 2 y/o
  
• Bilateral Coordination—7 items (e.g., tapping foot and finger, jumping jacks) - scored as a 2 y/o
  
• Balance—9 items (e.g., walking forward on a line, standing on one leg on a balance beam)
• Running Speed and Agility—5 items (e.g., shuttle run, one-legged side hop) - scored as 5 y/o
  
• Upper-Limb Coordination—7 items (e.g., throwing a ball at a target, catching a tossed ball) - scored as a 4 y/o
  
• Strength—5 items (e.g., standing long jump, sit-ups)

I didn't see all of the results because boy was ready to play in the sensory playroom. So, going through this experience is extremely difficult...no one can quite understand how it feels to have someone basically tell you that right now your child is far behind where they should be...and far behind with things that just seem natural. It's not like a teacher is telling me he has a hard time reading and needs summer school. He can't efficiently use scissors. He can't efficiently write, color, hop, skip, jump, throw a ball, catch a ball...and he's a boy...how can this be possible? So now I will sit here and ponder what I did wrong, even though deep down I know there is nothing that we did wrong..but still!

So the evaluation results were harder to hear than I imagined, but it's a good thing. We are finally getting help, we are finally finding resources, we are finally making progress. We are moving forward and things will be significantly better by the time school starts. This is a positive thing!

The therapist is wonderful! I just love her. Boy was very goofy/silly today and had a hard time keeping it together, which happened last time too. I think he is nervous/anxious so this is his way of dealing with it. Ms. Sue was very patient with him and kept him on track.

Some things we need to work on -- playing with tennis balls!!

Next appointment next Wednesday...can't wait!!

sensory therapy session 1

"Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it."~ Buddha

Today's sensory therapy was great! We started off doing more testing:

1. line up plastic pennies and then pick them up with his right hand and put them into a cup on his left side, all while timed.
2. pick up small pegs with his right hand and put them into peg holes while timed.
   
3. take mixed up cards (some red squares, some blue circles) and separate the cards into two piles, with his right hand only while timed.
   
4. thread a shoelace through wooden block beads while timed.
   
5. jumping jacks

things to work on at home:

1. play card games - simply flipping the cards over (for example dealing cards) helps build the hand dexterity.
2. one handed sorting - practice taking something from the right, with your right hand, and putting it into a cup on your left.

We also did some time in the playroom, working on the swings and ladders. Next week we won't have a session because we will be out of town, but the week after that we are going to start with a little more testing, visual perception I believe she said.

Basically she stated that he has coordination, gross & fine motor, auditory and tactile sensory issues. When she gets to know him a little better, she will start him on therapeutic listening.

This is by far the most exciting time in our life! We are finally getting answers. We are finally getting somewhere!!

amazing discoveries

I learned so much in our one hour sensory evaluation yesterday, that I cannot even begin to put it all into words, but I will try.

First - I am now officially a huge sensory therapy addict! From just my ONE hour evaluation, it had such a huge impact on our life. Nearly everything that we have been troubled over is sensory related and can be helped.

For more sensory related info, join this site: www.sensoryplanet.org - become a member, join some groups, gather info, inform your brain, change your life!

Ok, so first our OT/PT (Sue) asked what areas am I the most concerned about. Wow, most concerned? Of course I have this huge gigantic list of sensory issues that I have discovered just from reading about it, but what am I the most concerned about? I had to keep telling myself "small steps, small steps". So, my most concerning issues would be his noise sensitivity (because it makes it so he can't eat lunch at school) and his handwriting/coloring (because well, just because I don't want him to keep struggling). I think she noticed me fretting over only having to select a few to start so she let me rattle off my entire list and took notes. Here are our key issues:

• noise sensitivity
• handwriting/coloring
• rocking, hair twirling, hand flapping
• chewing
• uses his hands to eat
  
• feel of things on his skin
  

She then had me complete a sensory profile to get a better gauge on where he was across the board, including things I had never heard of or read about -- super enlightening! While I was doing the "test", she was working with boy on handwriting, definitely an issue there.

Sue played a game with boy where he had to use his right hand (writing hand) to pick up dry elbow macaroni, only using his right hand. He had to palm the macaroni and then, still using just his right hand, he had to put each macaroni into a cup one at a time. This was extremely difficult for him and he kept wanting to use his left hand to help. He had no problems picking up the macaroni (using index finger and thumb coordination), but had a huge amount of difficulty using his index finger/thumb to manipulate the noodle from the palm of his hand, to his finger tips and into the cup. This is a game we will now play at home to help strengthen that motor skill.

*Using his hands to eat could be that he likes the feel or it could be lack of control over the utensils.

So, he lacks in the motor skill department, which I anticipated. However, what I did not realize is how the motor skills affect other areas. (I hope I can explain this as well as Sue did!). She took him to a huge play room with various swings hanging from the ceiling, bean bags, jumping ball areas, ladders, slides -- it was the coolest room. She told him that he could play with anything he wanted and she watched him react.

1. He did awesome transitioning to the new room, kudos!
2. After she told him he could play anything he wanted, he was super timid.
3. He asked "what does this do" pointing to a swing and she would only respond with "I don't know" and he would just stand there.
4. Finally, he decided he would try out the swing and stated that it looked like a swing (it was like a huge padded rectangular shape) and he sat on the swing.
5. After sitting on it and gently swinging he stood up and walked away from it.

This type of play continued. What Sue noticed from this was that he lacked the basic parts of motor skill development. Basically there are 3 things that happens with motor skills (which I hope I am calling it he correct thing) -

1. You get a new toy and you come up with a bunch of ideas on how you can play with it (new blocks - oh I can stack them, I can put them into the bucket, etc etc)
2. You execute and try out your ideas (ok I'm stacking the blocks, oh they don't stack well, that's not any fun...)
3. You move on to the next idea that you had with the toy (ok so stacking wasn't fun, lets put them in the bucket)

Processes 1 - 3 loop over and over. With boy, he sat on the swing and didn't think to do anything else with it. While I sat watching I thought to myself "stand on it, shake it side to side" and it doesn't appear he had any of those thoughts. Learning steps 1 - 3 are huge for motor development and later for handwriting development - being able to think out what you are planning to write, writing it, going back to the other ideas, putting it on paper, etc.

While we played in the sensory room, she rattled off tidbits of information about my other concerns.

His rocking and hair twirling can be many things; balance issues (vestibular), anxiety related or due to under stimulation.

For balance issues (which he doesn't like to be off the ground except while swinging) the auditory and vestibular nerves are close together. Sometimes children who have auditory issues (his noise sensitivity) will try to overcompensate by rocking and moving (vestibular).

For anxiety issues the rocking/hair twirling could be a way to self-regulate himself and calm himself. For most people, when we are anxious we are able to internally talk ourselves down, but for him he may not have that ability so he tries to achieve that by rocking/hair twirling.

For any of these, we must use him as a guide to figure out what he is lacking and change the behavior to one more appropriate.

There is so much more that I could report on and I am sure I will add to this post soon, but I think I will publish now before it becomes too large.

Overall, I am extremely excited for this new adventure. I feel like we are finally moving!!

Appointments are weekly, I will report everything we do at the appointments. Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions!!

sensory issues

It is interesting to find out now that all of the oddball things that my son do could be due to "something" instead of just stubbornness. My newest quest is to try to find ways to help him deal with whatever sensory issue is causing the below...

1. noise issues - he hates loud places and school is proving to be very difficult, specifically the lunchroom. He has social skills issues so I want to try to do everything possible to make it so he doesnt stick out in the crowd, but I also don't want the solution to be that he eats alone with the teacher. It seems like the lunchroom is a golden opportunity for socializing if he #1 has the want and #2 can handle the noise. At first we allowed him to listen to his mp3 player during lunch, but then he said he didn't need it. However, he has again started to get irritated by the noise, which could be because they aren't able to go outside after lunch due to the cold. I have thought about getting him little earplugs that he could keep in his pocket just in case he needs them. Any other ideas?
2. messy eating - I would love for him to be able to eat/drink something without needing to use his fingers to touch it first...how great would that be! It would also save us on all of the uniform shirts that have gotten ruined this year -- I think we are up to 8 throw aways now! This isnt a big issue though, but could start to add to the social skills issues as he gets a little older.


Crisis occurring, will post more soon!