Sensory Processing Issues, the Beginning

Starting at the beginning the reason for us as parents starting to do a further search into his behaviour was that Josiah's behaviour was causing more of a problem. What we struggled with the most especially at the end of the term, the start of the term was a child who took hours to get dressed and very frustrating for all of us involved. These problems were also showing up when we picked Josiah up from school. It seemed that the second he was in our prescence he would just loose it and we would be on the receiving end of yelling, screaming for any type of reason and often we would not even get home before it started.

What was most confusing about this whole issue is that I had always assumed that because my son was not like the classic case of not liking socks, tags or other more common signs, he had no issues in this area. When it was brought up I was skeptical but thought I should just in case check it out to be fair. This first website I found was a website that listed information about SPD and also included a checklist to complete all 13 pages long:). Shock horror reading the information on the auditory side of the disorder rung true to me. The things that stood out to us were on the checklist:

• Difficult filtering out other sounds while trying to pay attention to one person talking
• Looks at others to/for reassurance before answering
• If not understood, has difficulty re-phrasing; may get frustrated, angry and give up.

From here I rang the OT that we were in contact with through the school and she was helpful. What was fortunate for me is that they were running a workshop on the very issue at the Child Development Centre which I was able to get a place. The workshop itself was a little beginner but it was good to hear stories from other Mums in the same position. There will be a follow up workshop in a few weeks time.

A few things stood out to me apparently deep touch (for those who can handle it) can be a form of calming, activities such as jumping on a trampoline, running and muscle exertion or a hug, there are a few types of activities that can help. 15 minutes of this type of activity can be calming for two hours, that one statement was very helpful. For sure if I can calm my child for two hours for a mere 15 minutes let's do it.

So we are at the beginning of working this out and not even starting to understand the complexity of the situation and working out what how each condition is and how we can treat it and what the issues are for each.

Please click here for my summary link on Sensory Processing Issues which I will update as I understand things more!