John Michael, sensory avoider.

John Michael is my sensory avoider, he has a very hard time calming down and he was the first to be diagnosed with SPD. When he was much younger he had a hard time walking on grass, would not play with sand and could not stand to get dirty in any way. He would not eat any messy food and would only wear certain clothes.

Once this child gets upset or is focused on something he can not get it off his mind. We have to do lots of deep compression with JM and when he was younger had to make him swing and would wrap him tight in blankets to help calm him.

We noticed JM's inability to self calm when he was a year old, the other two were doing much better, they would get upset and be able to calm them selves down, JM on the other hand would stay upset. He could not let go of what ever he was fixated on and seemed to get really upset when you would make changes in our routine in any way.

Now to help him adjust to changes we always talk with him about them in advance, we let him know at least a day ahead of time that we are going to be doing something different the next day. We talk about it a good bit and build it up so that he is aware of the changes and can deal with them more.

This year at school he decided he wanted to see how the toilet worked so he stuck his head in it, thank goodness it had recently been flushed. He told me he wanted to see how the water would feel on his head. He loves WATER, however washing his hair is difficult. As well as getting any water in his eyes. He screams.

JM has very sensitive eyes, has to always wear glasses. His gross and fine motor skills are delayed as well as his speech.

He is my biggest concern once school starts.

Therapy has helped him a great deal and while this touches on some of his issues, you get the idea of what is going on with him.

Thanks again for reading.

So what is Sensory Processing Disorder, or SPD

I have been asked this a good bit in the recent past, in fact since blogging about the kids and what is going on with them I get it more and more. So I thought why not kill two birds with one stone and try and explain what is going on with the kids.

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is a disorder of the brain, it has often been said that children with SPD are actually on the spectrum, but this has yet to be said as factual. It is in fact a disorder of the brain and results in people with SPD not being able to process all the informaiton that is coming in. When in loud places they have a hard time processing all that is going on, it is difficult for them to process sounds, touch, taste, vision, and movement to name a few.

Children and or adults with SPD have a hard time processing information as it comes into their bodies, their brain in fact does not interpret the experience as they should. A child with SPD do not experience things the same way as we do. A simple change from walking on grass to dirt while barefoot to us is no big deal, to a child with SPD it could result in confusion, pain even and they could have a melt down.

While other children with SPD will seek out activities like this, they may have to lick everything they see, they seek out high impact activities, seem to be rougher and more "Boy" than other children, have a difficult time sitting still or in one place for extended periods of time.

As a result of these difference children with SPD have difficulties with self calming, gross motor and fine motor skills will be affected, they may have a difficulty with speech and may not talk at the same time as their piers, writing is difficult as their fine motor skills are delayed.

As you see this is just the basics. You can learn so much more by visiting various SPD sites like

http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/


I will have follow up post on the different types of SPD. Thank you for reading.