Sensory Processing Disorder

I went to a seminar on Wednesday with Ethan’s teacher, Mary.  The title of the seminar was “Strategies to Help Children with Sensory Processing Disorder”.  The two speakers were, Carol Kranowitz- author of  The Out-of-Sync Child, and Paula Aquilla, OT and co-author of Building Bridges Through Sensory Integration.

First of all, if you have a child with SPD and you do not have either of these books, I would recommend purchasing them!  I have already been able to learn so much!  I am, particularly, enjoying Building Bridges.  I love the checklist pages and activity samples given to try to work on.

We have known that Ethan has “sensory issues” for a while, but we just felt like we would try, try, try different suggestions without any luck.  Some of Ethan’s behaviors were appearing to be “mean”.  He was pinching or pulling hair and would not stop when told NO.  He would be having a great time playing with laughter and giggles and then, BAM, he would flip to be “mean”. 

When I told Ms. Aquilla this, she immediately asked me if Ethan has seizures. “ Ummmm, not that I am aware of”.  Ms. Aquilla is also studying neurology and proceeds to tell me that his behavior sounds like he is having sensory seizures.  She said that sensory seizures are not spoken of often because they are difficult to diagnose and they are not as obvious to others like say, a grand mal seizure.  We have a neurologist appointment on the 16th that took close to 9 months to get and I intend to discuss the possibility of sensory seizures with Ethan and if the lesions that were found on Ethan’s brain have any significance.  This should get interesting and I will be sure to update with a follow-up after the neuro appointment.

Back to the actual seminar- what wonderful speakers!  We were there for 9 hours, and that does not include my 5 hours of driving time to and from home, but it didn’t seem like it.  They both made such a complicated subject fun to learn about! 

There are different classifications within SPD:

Sensory Modulation Disorder/Sensory Over-Responsivity (SOR)

• Defensive Behavior
• Avoids sensation
• Most common SPD
• Most emotional
• Fast fight, flight, and/or fight response to cope
• Challenging, rigid
• Frequent Meltdowns

Sensory Under-Reponsivity (SUR)

• Requires intense input just to notice
• Disregards sensation; appears disengaged
• Safety issue; poor response to pain
• Slow responsiveness

Sensory Seeker (SS)

• Constantly seeking out sensation
• Bumper and crasher
• Safety concern
• Can be impulsive
• Seems more than even they can handle

Sensory Discrimination Disorder (SDD)

• Can’t differentiate between sensation; even between internal and external sensation
• May or may not co-exist with SMD

Sensory Based Motor Disorder (SBMD)

• Postural Disorder
• Difficulty with core strength, balance, bilateral co-ordination
• Low tone, easy fatigue
• Associated responses
• ‘leaner’

Sensory Based Motor Disorder (SBMD)

• Dyspraxia
• Clumsy, difficulty learning new movements
• Ideational, ideomotor challenges
• May prefer familiar tasks as new ones are so difficult to learn
• Behavior can be inflexible

Ethan can check off a number of these symptoms within the classifications!  Ms. Aquilla said that it is quite common for kids to cross over into other classifications.  I felt better about that, knowing that we aren’t the only ones!

We were working on a sensory diet (sample sensory diet here) already, but after attending this seminar, we are in SD overdrive!  Another thing that I am going to work on (PRAY FOR ME NOW!!!), is taking as much artificial color, especially reds, out of Ethan’s diet.   I know that Ethan is not going to be very happy with this since he LOVES his strawberry milk!  What we are going to try as a substitute is to puree some frozen/fresh strawberries and add that mixture to his milk instead.  Here’s to hoping it works!!!

The next project in line after removing artificial colors for a while is to go gluten-free.  YIKES!!!  Do you know how many foods have gluten in them?!?!?!  Especially the foods that Ethan LOVES!  I believe it was Ms. Kranowitz who mentioned that she once had a student who only ate 3 things and those 3 things were toxic to his system.  Artificial colors and gluten could very well be contributing to some of Ethan’s challenges.  We have to try this.  If it works, great!  If not, then at least we can say that we tried.

There are other things that we can do diet-wise, but I want to start with those two things.  I am thinking at least a month without AC first and then introduce GF- is that enough time to see a change?

I gained SO much information from this event.  I am a little overwhelmed by it all, but I see hope.  We are SO incredibly lucky to have Mary for our teacher!  She took the day off of work, unpaid thank you, to get more information on how she can help Ethan.  We all want to work as a team and be on the same page. 

This sensory business is NO JOKE and I hate it, but we do have a dim light in the distance at the end of a very long tunnel.  This is another battle that Ethan will fight, and just like all of his previous battles, he will WIN and come out on top.  I have faith in him that he can!