30 SPD Facts in 30 Days -- Fact #18

Most children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) are just as intelligent as their peers. Many are intellectually gifted. Their brains are simply wired differently.  (From SPD Foundation's website)

I know most parents think their kid is exceptional in some way or another, so I really wish you could meet Josiah.  He really is exceptional!  He is SOOO articulate and curious, and he makes such amazing intellectual connections between things and figures things out so quickly and effortlessly.  His vocabulary rivals some middle schoolers' and he's not even six yet!  And if he has heard a story even one time (especially if it was read dramatically) he can recite nearly the entire thing back (give him two or three repititions of the same story and he can recite the whole thing complete with emotion!) 

Don't forget to stop by Lucas's Journey with SPD to enter the 30 Giveaways in 30 Days and also check out  Hartley's Life with 3 Boys to read 30 Stories in 30 Days, guest blogs from 30 different families about their experiences with an SPD child.

30 SPD Facts in 30 Days -- Fact #17

Children with Sensory Processing Disorder often have problems with motor skills and other abilities needed for school success and childhood accomplishments. As a result, they often become socially isolated and suffer from low self-esteem and other social/emotional issues.

These difficulties put children with SPD at high risk for many emotional, social, and educational problems, including the inability to make friends or be a part of a group, poor self-concept, academic failure, and being labeled clumsy, uncooperative, belligerent, disruptive, or "out of control." Anxiety, depression, aggression, or other behavior problems can follow. Parents may be blamed for their children's behavior by people who are unaware of the child's "hidden handicap."   (From SPD Foundation's website)

These are the issues that scare me!  We're working really hard to prevent them, and I know there is more we will need to do (and start doing now).  So far, he seems to be doing well with  most of this -- though he is not yet 6 and would only be in kindergarten this year. 

One of the things we're doing (that we had planned to do even before we found out about Josiah's sensory issues) is to homeschool him.  We did try putting him in preschool at age 4 because he is such an extrovert and loves to be around people -- but after several months, it just wasn't working for him.  He started coming home worried that the other kids didn't like him and started to resist going some of the time.  And we noticed that the "better" he was at school, the "worse" he was at home.  It just took too much of his energy to keep it together for those few hours and he would completely meltdown at home.  The staff at the preschool were amazing and tried really hard to be helpful, but school just isn't an environment that he can succeed in right now. 

In my terrified moments, I've considered putting him into kindergarten, but then I remember what a miserable nightmare it would be for him -- intellectually, he is ahead of the curve, but his motor skills (large motor for recess games and ball playing and small motor for things like cutting and especially writing and drawing) he's a little behind -- which means he would spend half his time bored and the other half frustrated, and that just sounds like a recipe for disaster, not to mention all the time he'd have to spend trying to sit still when his body really wants him to stay on the move.  Even if we could get him to a place where he'd manage all right at school, I think it would be at the expense of having a happy child at home, and we're just not willing to do that right now.  Perhaps at some point in the future we'll try school, but for now homeschooling is best for all of us. 

Our area has tons of homeschoolers, which means tons of support and lots of social opportunities, like Wednesday Park Play Day, where a large group of homeschooled families meet at a local park (a different one each week) to let the kids play.  He gets the benefit if building relationships with the same group of kids each week (a variety of age groups, too) and has a great time getting to run and climb while I get to chat with other homeschooling moms -- great setup!

I'm also trying to talk with him more about what his body is telling him and how he is (and/or can be) handling that.  Not only will this teach him more self-awareness and relevant coping skills, it will help remind us that he's dealing with sensory issues in those moments we forget and want to just treat him like a normal kid when he's driving us crazy!  Right now I'm working with our OT to write a few "social stories" that help him understand and deal with some of the key issues that are frustrating us all right now -- more on that in future posts I hope.

And, of course, I'm trying to educate the people around us so they will start to understand the challenges he faces.  I sometimes wish his special needs were more obvious, that he didn't look so normal to outside observers so that we would all face less scrutiny and judgment (can I at least plaster a huge bumper sticker on all his clothes?!)  I know that wouldn't solve everything either, and I'm grateful that he really is so adorable and articulate and fun (most of the time LOL).  And do lots of praying for grace and wisdom and joy -- and we're finding more and more of that all the time!

Don't forget to stop by Lucas's Journey with SPD to enter the 30 Giveaways in 30 Days and also check out  Hartley's Life with 3 Boys to read 30 Stories in 30 Days, guest blogs from 30 different families about their experiences with an SPD child.

30 SPD Facts in 30 Days -- Fact #16

Another analogy for what it's like to live with Sensory Processing Disorder, from Michelle at http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/   She uses this description when she teaches seminars on SPD:

Imagine if:

  You could see obstacles in your way, but you could not make your body move the direction you wanted it to to avoid them.

  You felt like someone had given you a shot of Novocain in your backside so you couldn't feel if you were sitting in the middle of your chair and you fell off 3 times during this training.
  Your clothes felt like they were made of fiberglass.
  You tried to drink a cup of water from a paper cup, only you couldn't tell how hard to squeeze it to hold onto it. So, you squeezed it too hard and the water spilled all over you. The next time you didn't squeeze it hard enough and it fell right through your hands and onto the floor.
  Every time you tried to write with your pencil, it broke because you pushed too hard.
  The different smells in this room made you utterly nauseous.
  The humming of the lights sounded louder than my voice.
  You couldn't focus your eyes on me because everything and everyone in the room catches your attention and your eyes just go there instead.
  The lights are so bright you have to squint, then you get a pounding headache half way through the presentation
  Every time someone touches you, it feels like they are rubbing sandpaper on your skin.
  You could only sit here for 15 minutes and then you had to take a run around the building or do 20 jumping jacks so you could sit for another 10 minutes before your muscles felt like they were going to jump out of your skin.
  People's whispers sounded like they were yelling.
  The tag in the back of your shirt makes you feel as uncomfortable as you would if a spider was crawling on you and you couldn't get him off.
  You wanted to write something down but it took you at least 5 seconds to form each letter. You can see the letter in your head, but your hand will not go in the right direction to write it.
  You had to pull the car over 3 times on the ride here because the motion makes you sick.

Don't forget to stop by Lucas's Journey with SPD to enter the 30 Giveaways in 30 Days and also check out  Hartley's Life with 3 Boys to read 30 Stories in 30 Days, guest blogs from 30 different families about their experiences with an SPD child.

30 SPD Facts in 30 Days -- Fact #15

Stanley Greenspan, the author of "The Challenging Child " (1995) has an insightful analogy to help us understand what people experience when they can not effectively process, or interpret, sensory input. He describes it this way:

"Imagine driving a car that isn't working well. When you step on the gas the car sometimes lurches forward and sometimes doesn't respond. When you blow the horn it sounds blaring. The brakes sometimes slow the car, but not always. The blinkers work occasionally, the steering is erratic, and the speedometer is inaccurate. You are engaged in a constant struggle to keep the car on the road, and it is difficult to concentrate on anything else."

Don't forget to stop by Lucas's Journey with SPD to enter the 30 Giveaways in 30 Days and also check out  Hartley's Life with 3 Boys to read 30 Stories in 30 Days, guest blogs from 30 different families about their experiences with an SPD child.

30 SPD Facts in 30 Days -- Fact #14

While most of us have occasional difficulties processing sensory information, for children and adults with SPD, these difficulties are chronic, and they disrupt everyday life. 

I think everybody probably has some sensory issues -- it's just that they are more pervasive in some than in others. For most of us, we have one or two senses that are bothersome some of the time -- for SPD kids like Josiah, all of his senses (or nearly all of them anyway) are out of whack nearly all the time. When it's less pervasive, it is simply less disruptive to your daily life.  It's more socially acceptable to be offended at smells than to be unable to sit still because your vestibular system is driving you crazy, or to make loud noises because you need more auditory input, or to crash into anything and everything so you can get some more input in your muslcles and joints, or to do all of the above at the same time nearly all day long.

Don't forget to stop by Hartley's Life with 3 Boys to read 30 Stories in 30 Days, guest blogs from 30 different families about their experiences with an SPD child.

30 SPD Facts in 30 Days -- Fact #13

Sensory Processing Disorder can also affect our interoceptive senses, or our body’s ability to interpret and regulate normal functions like temperature, respiration, heart rate, arousal (sleep), mood, elimination, hunger and thirst.

This is definitely true for Josiah!  I can remember several times as a baby that he would have very high unexplained fevers -- he'd have no other symptoms aside from a fever of 104.  He was in a good mood, acting normally, even screening normally on blood and urine tests -- just running hot :)  As a toddler and preschooler, he would often wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat from his body cooling down at night and then overcompensating to heat himself back up -- by the time his body finally realized he was warm, he was already too hot and then would perspire like crazy to cool down, only to start the cycle over again.  We seem to have finally figured out just the right combination of pajamas, weighted blanket and room temp and havne't had much trouble with this lately.  That doesn't mean he never sweats at night (he does sometimes, though not as badly) nor does it mean he sleeps through the night (he doesn't, ever) but at least it isn't the overheated sweating that is waking him.

We have yet to figure out a good solution to his night waking.  We've tried dozens of things: letting him sleep in our bed, not letting him sleep in our bed, feeding him protein before bed, feeding him carbs before bed, not feeding him before bed, staying with him while he falls asleep, not staying with him while he falls asleep, lights on, lights off, lights dim, no blankets, heavy blankets, even melatonin.  While we have had some success with some of the strategies keeping him asleep longer before he wakes, he still does wake up every night.  He'll be six at the end of November and I can count on my hands the number of nights in his life that he slept completely through.

I've posted before about potty training issues so suffice it to say here that he has certainly struggled with that, too!  We're getting closer and closer all the time, but I still wouldn't consider him fully potty trained, and he's definitely not dry at night.  All in good time, I suppose.

Don't forget to stop by Hartley's Life with 3 Boys to read 30 Stories in 30 Days, guest blogs from 30 different families about their experiences with an SPD child.

30 SPD Facts in 30 Days -- Fact #12

What are some signs of Sensory Processing Disorder?

Signs Of Visual  Dysfunction (with no physical vision problem):

Hypersensitive:  Irritated by sunlight or bright lights; easily distracted by visual stimuli; avoids eye contact; may become over aroused in brightly colored rooms.

Hyposensitive:  Difficulty controlling eye movements and tracking objects; mixes up similar letters; focuses on little details in a picture and misses the whole; looses his place frequently when reading or copying from the blackboard.

Remember that inconsistency is a hallmark of this disorder, so you may find yourself/your child being hypersensitive one day and hyposensitive another day and on yet another day seem completely normal.  For a more complete checklist of symptoms, click here.http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/sensory-processing-disorder-checklist.html

Like smell, Josiah's vision system seems to work well enough to also not need much special consideration on a daily basis.  We did have him evaluated by a vision specialist (not just an optometrist) and while he was a tad bit behind in a few areas, it wasn't worrisome or anything that required correction.  He does tend to become overwhelmed in rooms that are busy or cluttered, and he mixes up similar letters (though I think that is pretty age appropriate right now).  And if there is much clutter around, he can't seem to find anything he is looking for (especially if I'm the one who asked for it LOL) but aside from reducing clutter, there isn't much we need to do for him visually.  Yay for that!

Don't forget to stop by Hartley's Life with 3 Boys to read 30 Stories in 30 Days, guest blogs from 30 different families about their experiences with an SPD child.