Sensory Processing.. What Is It and Some Things We Do Things in Our Family To Help It

It is said by Dr. Kayrn Purvis (a must look into for adoptive families) that most, if not all adoptive children have Sensory Processing problems. What this means is that they did not have an opportunity to develop all their senses in way which their bodies can use them properly or with regulation. Just a small sampling of how babies sensory system is developed healthy is by a rich environment of holding, eye contact, feeding, rocking, singing, bathing, etc. Adoptive children are not the only people that have sensory disregulation. Adoptees just happen to always have a traumatic beginning (adoption starts with trauma for every child, even in the best of the best adoptive situations. Just losing bio-Mommy is traumatic for a baby.) Often sometimes it is even worse with: abandonment, neglect, abuse, starvation, medical issues causing emotional and physical pain, lack of touch and stimulation, which makes it inevitable for these precious children to have sensory disorder. When you add a "hard beginning" or imbalanced brain chemistry (even biological children in the best situations can have) than the sensory system is jeopardized.

I believe every parent, especially adoptive parents, should give their children some special measures of grace and mercy, knowing that their bodies just don't work the way ours do and haven't matured yet to be able to be regulated. Then we should help them regulate and eventually learn to regulate themselves, so they can get along well with others as they grow up. I happen to be a Mama to 3 adoptive children with sensory disregulation, along with several of my birth children having issues with certain sensory categories, some of them all of the senses. So for the last 4 years I have begun really studying this interesting diagnosis, trying to understand it, and seeking help for my children. 

The first book I read that explains it all so well is the The Out of Sync Child. The first website that I found with a huge amount of helpful information, including an awesome checklist that I used to take into our pediatrician for support, is Sensory Processing Disorder. I recommend if after reading my post you want more information to start with those two resources. Even if your child doesn't have a diagnosis of SPD there is valuable information for all parents.

So what are our senses and how do they affect every day life in the way we live, interacting with others and our environments? Any, several, or all of our senses can be disregulated, causing disorder to our nervous system. They can either be "under responsive", "over responsive", or a combination, which is often a pendulum swinging from one extreme to another, and what I find is the most difficult to deal with as you never know what to expect. It becomes especially challenging as well when you have multiple senses that are disregulated.

Under-responsive means that the the sense is not getting enough feedback. So for a child with under-responsiveness to Touch they will be the one who touches everything they come across, seeks messy play like mud, crash and bumps into things attempting to give their bodies more touch and meet that lack of feeling of it, this child will often not feel pain either. Sometimes I have heard of these children getting burned easily, as they just don't feel the injury that occurs instantly like most of us do. The child with the over-responsive nervous system to Touch will be the one who can't stand being kissed, is easily tickled, doesn't like to walk on grass, might walk on tip toes, doesn't like tags on clothing, has a hard time with hair and fingernails being cut etc. And for a child with a combination of these two it might be one hour they don't feel their clothes are all twisted up and maybe even falling off them, but then later that day they are frustrated as their shoes are "too tight" and they must take them off at church. 

Under-responsive to Sound would be a child who likes loud music, might speak loudly, doesn't seem to 'hear' others, and makes vocal noises often. The opposite to that for over-responsive to Sound would be a child that hears sounds in other rooms (like flourscent light bulbs or a barely audible buzzing), covers ears a lot, asking others to 'be quiet', fearful of sounds like a fire truck driving by or grossed out by a siblings chewing sounds (just attempted to deal with this issue tonight). That is where there can also be challenges if  you have two children who are opposites in that sense; one who doesn't hear their chewing loudly and one who hears the slightest crunch from another, ready to gag from it. It can be very frustrating as a parent some times. However, no excuse will be made for anger, dealing with it ungraciously or ignoring it. I have been guilty of doing all those things before and still do sometimes, unfortunately. I am thankful to have a loving God who continues to teach me how to be a better, more patient Mommy and children who forgive me so sweetly.

We all are familiar with the 5 Senses: Touch, Sound, Oral, Smell and Sight. All of those senses can be out of order or regulation at times, for each of us. We all deal with some issue, or have in our lives. For instance, I still can't handle the sound of certain touches on a black board (finger nails for one) it just "kills" my ears and sends vibes up my spine that are literally painful. I also prefer a really dark room to go to sleep or I don't sleep well. Pitch dark would be 'heaven' to me, but I have learned to adjust with what darkness I can get, because I share a room with little ones and have the lights from the alarm clock and computer. I also can not eat certain foods like mushrooms as it just gags me to where I could vomit, but I do enjoy the flavor of mushroom soup without the actual chunks of mushroom in it. So it is definitely an Oral issue for me. I am sure most of us can think of at least some things that we struggle with or did as a child but with maturity and growth we have overcome or adapted to it. I know for me while I still can not handle the chalk board thing, I have overcome the cracking of knuckles that used to do the same thing to me as child and teen. It would send me over the edge if others did that around me. Today, not so much. However, that is just the issue, people with Sensory Processing Disorder have so many things disorganized/disregulated/under or over responsive that they can NOT adapt well and they have a lot of pain and discomfort every single day as it is all just so much to deal with. All of that makes it difficult to function in many situations.

Besides the well known five, there are also 3 other senses that most of us are not familiar with that I want to share. These too are what the SPD child are needing help with and very important to all of our nervous systems and bodies: Proprioceptive, Vestibular and Interoceptive.

Proprioceptive is the sensory input and feedback that tells us about movement and body position. The location for this sense is in our muscles, joints, ligaments, tendons, and connective tissues. A person with this sense in dysfunction is often "clumsy", they might push too hard, fall off of things "purposely" as they don't feel it, play too rough, like tight clothing, have a hard time climbing or riding a bike, have poor posture, bite their nails or chew on things, balance is off (can't stand on one foot) and be the "loud" kids.

Vestibular  is the sense of movement which comes from the inner ear: equilibrium, gravitational changes, movement experiences and position in space are all affected by it. This person loses balance easily or can spin for an hour without getting dizzy, avoids playground equipment or things with height or craves jumping off of high places and swinging high. This person may not even like their feet to leave the ground without stress if they are over-responsive, seeming like they are in a lot of constant fear and anxiety. But the under-responsive child is more the "thrill-seeker", always moving and causing fear and anxiety in their parents.

Interoceptive is the internal self-regulation. So this person may get hot easily or cold easily, or seem to be hot or cold at the "wrong" times. They are not able to regulate thirst or hunger well, either never thirsty or hungry or all the time, or back and forth to extremes. Heart rates can be extreme, same with perspiration.

The wonderful news is that the sooner you can get a doctor to listen to your concerns for your child and prescribe the helpful therapies for them, the sooner you as a parent can learn to help your child, learn to help themselves. We have been doing our different types of therapies for almost 4 years now. We sometimes take a few months off as needed. It is always a fun and exciting time for my children. They all really LOVE it. It is hard work though, their bodies are being challenged in ways they aren't comfortable with and when we do some of the activities at home we do get resistance. I usually do not take "no" for an answer though. When it is time for us to enrich our sensory system, it is often done with multiple children at the same time and we try to just have fun, playing games.

One book I can't recommend enough is by the same author for The Out of Sync Child, is called The Out of Sync Child Has Fun. There are other books out there I have borrowed from the library that are good with a wealth of ideas to incorporate into your play time with your kids.

So with all our different types of therapies we have used in the parenting of our amazing children (Occupational, Physical, Speech, Neuro-feedback, Listening Therapy, Vision Therapy etc...), I am going to share some photos of just a few of the ones we have been doing the last couple of weeks. No family can do it all, at the same time. Pick and choose a few things to work on. Then try something new another week, month or year. It has been especially challenging with darkness coming at about 4:45 in the afternoon for our children along with the much colder temperatures this time of year. They seem to have more bickering, whining and just plain grumpiness about them when inside. We do allow some extra movie time, but that isn't so good, especially for the sensory system either, so we just do more indoor active things like mini trampoline and some of the things I will show below. 

By the way, our Occupational Therapist believes the mini trampoline is a great way to help children transition things in life: before school, after school, before dinner, before bed. It is a great deep pressure activity that helps the proprioceptive part of us regulate. It helps with left/right brain body awareness, vision and vestibular; not to mention muscle tone, endurance, lymph system and over all health. Even if the child can only do 1-2 minutes (we set the timer, or practice ABCs or math facts), it is helpful and useful, but it needs to be a part of every day life. Another tip, is that the large outdoor trampolines do NOT give the same affect and feedback as the mini trampolines. They are good for some of the same things: balance, muscle tone, endurance, hand eye coordination and more. However, I have found that for a lot of my children they can jump and jump and JUMP on the large trampoline and still be hyper when they come inside. It does not seem to give them the deep pressure that they need in their joints for the proprioceptive that is lacking in their day. 

One last thing, before you look at some fun things our family does through our days lately, please keep in my mind, we have days where I am just worn out or the kids resist too much, leaving us with not much done for "therapeutic activities", because I am dealing with tantrums too much.  A therapist says and Dr. Purvis says that we should be doing some sensory activity about every 2 hours. If we do that and feed our kids healthy snacks every couple hours it will save us a lot of battles. Well, some days that just can't happen, okay a lot of days! Ha...But even little bits helps most of the time. With some kids though, it is challenging even on our best days. Some kids do well on some days and bad on lots of other days even when we do a "diet" rich in sensory activities. We do have consequences for continued bad behaviors and we do not tolerate it, always correction going on in our home with all of our kids. I have though a greater understanding of what my children "feel" when their bodies aren't telling them what is what, telling them that their feet are even on the ground, or if they truly physically feel pain when another person gently bumps into them. It is my hearts desire to always think "Is this truly being done on purpose or just a reaction to a body that isn't giving them the proper instructions or help just to function in simple tasks?" That has got to be a difficult thing to deal with every hour of the day. My kids are my heroes, because really they put up with so much!!

 

Here is Elliana riding her little car. You should see her on this thing. She is amazing and I do believe gets faster and faster and more agile on it each day she uses it. She still can't walk on her own yet, but when she uses this little car (which is beginning to break after only 3 months of usage already) she can do just about anything.

All three of the 3 year olds have "cars" They often share, but Ellie is quite possessive of hers. Here they are making a little train, Asher is the leader of this bunch, as he pushes them all around from the back.

These little "Pop Tubes" are pulled out and pushed in and make a funny, popping sound when you use them. They are fun for the helping kids to hear things easier, deal with sounds better that they typically might not like and help with muscle issues along with fine motor skills as well.

We sometimes have scooter "Races" around the island in the kitchen. Bigger kids using their strength to push littler ones around and around, good fun for everyone.

Lenea can do it herself here on this "saucer".

Asher is one of our sensitive to sound guys, so we are trying out the headphones to lessen the noise. However, we haven't figured out how to teach him to be quieter when he wears them. He can't hear us well or hear himself speaking so he yells more when he wears them. Not sure if he got hurt in this photo or mad he didn't get his way. This often happens in these games, just part of growing up.

This is a favorite. We have a swing set up in the basement that the older kids can easily access on their own. This is a "sock" swing that we just bought 4 yards of Lycra and had our OT tie some tight knots in it and attach it to a hook. The kids are helped into it and there is a lot of deep pressure and muscles being used in this thing, plus vestibular.

Here is Lenea swinging in it, which is another excellent way to use it.

This is another one of our swings. It is a rectangular board that can be used side ways or back and forth. It fits these three monkeys just right. I am sitting close to Ellie to insure she doesn't fall off.

We have a "Sensory Bag" that I pull out a few times a week. All the children sit around in a circle. The ball that Toby is using is actually quite hard and makes a lot of tactile feed back. We called it the "Spiky Ball" and each child gets to take turns saying what body park to put it on. The top of the head and inside of the hands are my two favorites. It hurts, sort of, but feels good at the same time.

Here is Ellie doing "Under the Chin, No Hands" This ball she is using is not as poky as the red one above. We don't own enough for everyone so we take turns. She LOVES copying us and does really well at it.

These are sound sticks that you rub together for music. This put on the joints and top of the head or the chin or cheeks, gives a vibrating sensation that feels neat and goes into the joints, just rub them together..(please ignore the laundry in the background..never ending here..the "Sensory Bag is the striped blue pillow case on the ground).

We have these rubber type Vehicles that are in different colors. I am having Asher pick them up with this grabber toy. It takes a lot of coordination to pick it up, hold it in the clasp and then drop it in the correct colored bowl. He got frustrated at first as he couldn't do it and his perfectionism almost put him in a melt down. After I showed him how to use both hands to do it, he was able to accomplish about 20 of them, then Toby finished up the game. This helps a lot with hand and wrist strength which is great for school tasks. Kids with Sensory issues often struggle with low muscle tone in that area, which makes school even more challenging.

Asher is listening to our "Listening Therapy" . We had one of our older OTs show us this. You must only purchase it through an OT helping you. The website gives a good explanation. Asher is listening for 20-30 minutes, again timer set, and doing activities that work on various things.

The Balance Board.. Even Daddy is enjoying the therapy we do sometimes.

This is Ellie at her physical therapy, and her very sweet therapist. Anyway, she gets her walker next week. This one is a tad too big for her, but oh how she lights up with delight when she is on this. She is really strong on it, but her endurance is very low. We can usually get about 5-8 minutes of her using her before she starts saying "All Done".. 

She is concentrating hard at this and you can see us in the mirror cheering her on. I stand on one end so she is motivated to walk to me. I just LOVE seeing her move this way.

Here are a few resources I wanted to share. Please let me know if you have some to share or any questions. I love talking about "Therapy". My friend and I joke about all the different types of therapy our kids "need" and we figure when we are all done parenting them, we just might need our own therapy.

Neat Blog With LOTS of Good Information and Ideas

99 Sensory Activities

Speech Therapy Activities

Eye Exercises

Great Post for ALL Adults to Read on Why Our Kids Can't Sit Still