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Old 01-29-2009, 11:20 AM   #64
Clodfobble
UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 20,012
Since it got bumped, I suppose I should offer an update on things: The hyperactivity is much more under control, now that we have a better idea of what sets him off and what helps him feel more grounded. Turns out trips to the grocery store are weirdly therapeutic because he gets to ride standing up in the basket, and getting that swerving/swinging motion is supposed to be really calming (and the results are definitely observable on our end.) During the especially hellish time period prior to his diagnosis, it just happened that he hadn't managed to go to the store with me in weeks because of a variety of coincidental circumstances. Now I make up excuses to go at least every few days. We eventually had success in making his toys as heavy as possible like we were told to, but there were some failures at first. Let it be known that rice plus white glue will lead to mold. We had to throw out that collection of duplo blocks, but I filled the replacements with steel shot and glue instead, and those have worked beautifully. Also, no matter how confident you are that the thick plastic dinosaur will be water-tight after you seal it with hot glue, you will be wrong. Better to just fill it with steel shot from the beginning. Each time we returned a newly-weighted toy to him, you could tell he was exceedingly pleased with it. The downside is all this hefting weights will only make him stronger when he decides it's time for a flailing meltdown.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Labrat
I did a quick Medline search for "Sensory Processing Disorder" and "Sensory Integration Dysfunction " but came up empty handed.
Part of the reason is it's not an accepted disorder in the DSM-IV. The symptoms and treatments have been well-known for a long time, but they almost always present alongside the autism spectrum disorders, so it hasn't been given its own separate diagnosis. And indeed, he does have an autism spectrum diagnosis as well, but as I mentioned earlier, multiple diagnoses are good for insurance purposes, so for now we're acting like we don't know it's part of a larger problem.

As for the other symptoms, not a whole lot of progress can really be expected right away. We are pushing harder on making him say more complete phrases even if we know what he wants, and we're supposed to discourage the echolalia as much as we can. That one is hard for me though, because I am certain that part of the reason he's as social as he is is we have happily encouraged his communication up to this point, even though it's not a typical conversation style. The compromise is that rather than ignoring it, I try to instead act as if it is a normal conversation. "Oh yes, that's from TV show X. Do you like that show? It is a good show." I can tell he's not happy with this change though, and I'm trying to carefully walk the line between training him out of his abnormal habits while not overly discouraging him.
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