children

A Day in the Life of a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder   by Tara Konradi, OTD, OTR/L of SINEWS Multilingual Therapy Institute  How is it the behavior or a sensory seeking child and how to identify it?… “Bang! Thud, crash, pitter-patter, pitter-patter” Ana jolts out of bed to the sound of her six-year-old running through the hall to the living room. She looks at the clock; it isn’t quite 7 am. Her husband continues to sleep soundly next to her as she slips out of bed and into the living room where she finds James, her son, with all of the toys from his toy box spread across the room. “Zoom! Look, mom!” James yells as he jumps from the couch to the floor holding a toy plane in his hand. Initially, Ana cringes and wants to scold James for jumping on the furniture, but remembers what her occupational therapist told her about James’s need for seeking out sensory experiences, especially sensation in the muscles and joints, movement through space, and sound. “Wow! You’re a pilot!” Ana exclaims as she grabs his arms and helps him jump off the couch one more time. She spins him around in her arms like an airplane as he squeals with excitement. “Great landing, pilot. Now you’ve got to prepare for your next assignment: school! Go on, get dressed,” she says as she guides him down the hall to his room grasping his hips and making plane sounds. Ana leaves James in his room to get dressed as she goes to get ready herself. Her husband is up now and asks what James was up to. A wave of anger rushes over her as she visualizes him sleeping as she had to jump out of bed to attend to their son. She knows her husband means well and is just a naturally deep sleeper, but she can’t help resent it a bit. The father finally agreed in taking James to occupational therapy Actually, neither of them had even heard of occupational therapy until the school psychologist mentioned that James might benefit from it. After weeks of complaints from teachers and difficulties at home, they decided to bring James in for an evaluation. The occupational therapist (OT) explained to them that James’s engine is chronically running too fast. The OT called it a Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and told them that James has difficulty turning sensory information into appropriate behavior. For James, this means he is constantly craving and aggressively seeking out sensory input. She mentioned that the disorder could also cause children to have engines that run too slow, and Ana wondered why she was blessed with James the tornado. At first, the family was led to believe James had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but they visited a very experienced child psychologist who ruled that out. Ana was relieved; she knew it just didn’t quite fit the bill for James. Now, after only two months of OT intervention, they are seeing many changes in their son, and are encouraged and eager to learn more ways they can help him better organize his sensory needs to achieve states of calm and focus attention. Ana goes to check on the progress James has made getting dressed. His clothes for the day were previously laid out nicely in the order in which he was to put them on, but now they were thrown all over the room and some had actually made their way into James’s body. Ana smiles and looks at her son in socks and a t-shirt, but no pants as he plays with his cars in the corner of his room. “Let’s get moving tiger!” she says as she tickles him and manages to grab his pants at the same time. She helps him into his pants and gives him a kiss as they head to the bathroom to finish getting ready. What once took half an hour of struggling to get James dressed is now down to 15 minutes, and although she still helps him with many things, she is confident he’ll be able to do it himself one day soon. For children like James who are sensory seeking, it is often difficult to organize their behavior So activities such as dressing are difficult because their need for sensory input (playing with cars) is so consuming that organizing the activity (dressing) is very hard. When they make their way to the car to drive to school James runs across the yard and climbs up their medium sized maple tree. “Look! I’m a monkey!” he yells as he swings back and forth on a branch. “Wow, monkey! Can you swing back and forth 5 times and then jump in the car?” replies Ana, hoping that allowing James to swing will give him enough input to stay put in the car long enough to reach school without any incidences. “One, two, three, four, five!” He swings back and forth five times and jumps to the ground. He runs into the car without resistance. A sigh of relief runs over Ana. It worked! At school, James is found touching, prodding and pushing the kids in the hallway. His teachers scold him to keep his hands to himself as the children complain. Keeping his hands to himself causes both social and disciplinary problems for James, but once in the classroom, he finds himself feeling calmer and organized as he is allowed to play with the fidgety toy that is tied to the bottom of his desk. Fidgeting is common in sensory-seeking children. This was another idea the OT had for James to help him keep his hands to himself and be more organized and centered during class. “Take your pencils out and turn your language book to page 15,” says the teacher. James takes out his pencil with a chewy rubber topper. This T-shaped pencil topper with little nubbies on it is designed for James to chew on. It was another idea the OT