Sensory Integration

With Ashlea, like Monnie said, her major issue was getting dressed and wearing clothes. It became such a disturbance to every day life when it would take up to 2 hours to get her dressed each morning. I would feel sick at the thought of having to tackle getting her up and ready to leave the house in the morning. Certain clothes were easy and it was over with in 5 mins, but abviously i had no idea what was going on and did put it down to 'bad behaviour' as I had never heard of something like this.
She is almost 6 now and still has problems but is getting better now because we both understand the problems and realise that it really is a problem.

Chrsity, Ash could NOT stand having her hair tied up for years. Bands and clips and cute things 'didn't feel right' to her. I was so upset looking at the other kids in their gorgeous pumpkin patch clothes with hair bands and pony tails and clips, while ash was bare foot in a skirt and t shirt with her hair out all over the place.
Now she is experimenting with what she can deal with in her hair and as she gets older she can tolerate things better which is nice, but its still an issue. She can't stand low pony tails, they have to be high enough that they don't irriate her neck, and she prefers plaits of they are in a pony tail first, not just plaited.

Christy it very slowly does start to get better, and it really has helped ash seeing her therapist to help her cope with the situations. Like i've mentioned before, its not about treating the actual sensory problem, but finding ways to help everyone cope better with it. I certainly can't force ash to start dealing with a certain feeling or certain clothes, but we have come up with ways to help her.

Hi - it has been a while since anyone has written in here and I was wondering how you were going with paed visits and whatnot ??

We have an appointment next month as my son has some mannerisms consistent with autism. We saw a paed OT this week who said they cannot diagnose, but that he has sensory integration issues.

I had forgotten all about this thread but thought I would post what's been going on with us.

DS saw 2 paeds and got blown off by one and the second one diagnoised Pervasive delevelopment delay (and basically told us he didn't believe there was really much there but he would give us this dx to get some help at school)

After lots of umming and ahhing and swaying between feeling like a hypochondiatic mother and tearing my hair out as to why no-one else could see what was going on here a OT actually rang us. I had been told she was excellent and had put her name down on some school forms stating we would be seeing her but hadn't followed through with the mixed messages.

Anyway she is AMAZING! It helped tha Xanny was having a "bad" day the day of her assessment (vs the awesome day he had when we saw the paed) She was disgusted that the paed had blown us off and went through a lot of sensory processing disorder stuff with us while DS interacted with all of her "toys" weighted blankets, vibrating cushions tampolines high chairs, fidgets and widgets - he entertained himself for 3 hrs while she sat and assessed him.

It was so nice to sit in a room with someone who understood our child and what we go through nearly everyday! She has lots of things we can use at home - vibrating cushion to sit on at school and during dinner, weighted vests and blankets to calm when things are upseting and she is also working on his low muscle tone and speech problems (interesting to note that after 3 hrs of "therpy" - which he loved - his language was vastly improved - he could get whole sentences out without stumbling repeatiing or stuttering! Amazing difference. Anyone in Townsville area highly recommend Jillian Balyntine!!!!!

I'd forgotten about this thread too!

Well after all the cr@p in the past with the pead. that said she was completely fine despite me spending an hour telling him about all her little 'quirks', i finally found a pead that was a few hours from home that I went to see.
Within 5 minutes of being there she told me Ashlea has "Sensory processing disorder" and that Ashlea's specific area was "Tactile defensivness"

I almost cried just having someone finally listen to me and diagnose her. We talked alot about how it works, how it effects the child etc. She said that it was like her nervous system was running so high all the time. Similar to the feeling you would get if you were walking alone at night on your own and someone tapped you on the shoulder.

Anyway, we spoke about a technique called brush therapy and other things such as the need for things to be firm with her, such as holding hands, hugs, touch, etc. Soft toush created more irritabilty for them and heightens their nervous system, where a firm touch, a squeeze of the hand, a bear hug etc is alot more comforting for them.

She rolled ash up in a soft thin matress and put pressure on her which ashlea absolutley LOVED! She also tried the brush therapy with her which i still need to get one of to have at home.

While there isn't alot you can do for the tactile defensivness its wonderful to have seen this lady and understood more about it and ways to help Ash be more comfortable. I'm planning on seeing her again but time and money has been an issue lately.