Monday, September 29, 2008

Sensory Diet

Okay!  Whew, what a weekend.  Hurt my back and can't pick up my own child...  Sad state of affairs!

So - what the heck is a sensory diet?  By the way, as your OT gets to know your child, he or she should be making suggestions about a sensory diet for your child.  If they aren't - ask.

A sensory diet, as I understand it, is different experiences that you design for your child to be exposed to.  As Christy Kennedy explained it, you spend time figuring out what experiences help your child get into a 'good place,' and you plan time into your day for those types of experiences.  What we're doing, again, is getting our children into a place where their nervous systems are able to take in sensory input and respond to it in an appropriate way - and we're doing that over and over again to make these 'paths' automatic for our kids.  The goal is to help our children be able to respond appropriately to more and more different situations.

So, what the heck does it mean for your child to "be in a good place."  For me, it is particularly difficult.  Nathan is such a good natured child (or low-sensory aware) that he is nearly always behaving in a way that is pleasing to us.  And, he can't talk to tell us when he's uncomfortable or not wanting to do something.  He does let us know both verbally and non-verbally if he feels strongly about something - so, we're getting there.   That part is nice.

The way Christy explained "being in a good place" is that your child is able to listen to and respond to your requests.  The way she does it with her kids is occassionally she'll say something like "freeze!"  or "red light!" to get them to stop their rowdy play.  Then, depending on the age and capabilities of the child, she might ask them a question or ask them to do something - now, these are very small requests.  For instance, "name three colors," "name three cities,"  "what are your favorite three cartoon characters?"  

For us, because Nathan isn't talking and because he sometimes responds to our requests and other times doesn't appear to notice that we made a request at all (is he ignoring?  it's SO hard to tell!), the idea is to watch for situations when Nathan responds to our requests (Nathan, can you pick up your magnet before we close the door?) and then think about what we were just doing together (or what he was doing with the nanny) to figure out what kinds of activities put him in a place where he seems to be able to hear us and respond to our requests.  

Now, I'm sure this isn't going to be easy.  As a matter of fact, it looks to our nanny (Lynne!  you are wonderful!) that Nathan always hears her when she asks him to do things.  It is just that he sometimes ignores her.  Is he ignoring or is he just in a place where he isn't very sensory-aware?  This is going to require some very careful observation on our part.

Our current OT keeps telling me that we need to provide Nathan with sensory rich experiences.  I asked her what she means by that - she tells me that it is exposing him to all kinds of things with different textures; playing music for him; letting him swing; hugging him; squishing him with pillows; and more.  So, I'm thinking of getting bins and filling them with dry beans, rice, and, later with sand for the tactile stuff.  We haven't done this yet - partially because I know we're all really not looking forward to all the vacuuming that it is going to mean.  We do run around with him and squeeze him when we catch him, throw him on the sofa (very soft sofa) and squish him with pillows (he laughs and laughs while we do this) and let him swing every day.  So, I think we're doing a lot of what she is asking us to do -- so why do I always feel like I'm not doing enough!?!?!

Report on The Listening Program.  I got to see Nathan with the headphones on today.  His response wasn't as remarkable as it was last week (both Lynne and the OT, Melanie reported this), but he did gradually become more aware of the room and to us while he had the headphones on.   We're doing to use the music one more week in OT and then determine which program we're going to purchase.   There are many places to purchase this The Listening Program from.  We'll probably make an online purchase and save about $400; but, purchasing online means that the support help we'll be getting will be online as well.  But, $400 is a pretty significant amount of money to pay just to get help from people we can look at while we're talking to them.  Again, this program takes 40 weeks to do - so, we'll be working for a year.  Hopefully we'll see some good results!

Happy playing with your kids!   Hope you can pick them up. :-)

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