Slammer

My sweet boy. We finally got a diagnosis last week. Some of you may know, he was undergoing some tests for his... behavior. Our pediatrician referred us to a Developmental Behavior Pediatrician in May and we have, over the last 3 months, had Sammit tested for Autism and other disorders. Well, we went in last week for the final say. I have never thougt that he was fully autistic, but I thought there was a chance he might be high functioning or somehow on the (very broad) spectrum. Turns out that he is 2 points under the cut off for the autism spectrum, but exhibits a lot of the same behaviors. Primarily, our DB said that he has speech and fine motor delay, which can lead to dyslexia and dysgraphia (an inability to write). This made total sense to me and was an "A-HA!" moment when we were in there... the dyslexia part and dysgraphia part, we already knew he was delayed. Those make a lot of sense to me. Anyhow, AND he has sensory processing issues, which is often mis-diagnosed as, or can turn into if left untreated, ADHD. She said that he has a good attention span and doesn't exhibit an hyperactivity, so she won't even test for that again until he's 6.
I had never heard of sensory processing disorders before I went in for one of his Autism screenings and she asked me a few questions and mentioned it. Afterwards, I came home and did a little research and it totally makes sense to me. You can read more about it here: http://www.sinetwork.org/about-sensory-processing-disorder.html

Anyhow, after all this, she recommends 2 hours per week of speech therapy and 2 hours per week of occupational therapy to work on things like his need for "deep pressure" and his fine motor skills.

We began meeting with the therapists this week. The OT is awesome. I love her! Her program will be so good for SamBam. The room they treat him in is full of air mattresses, big bouncy balls, swings, a ball pit, tunnels... all sorts of things to help Samu find his "place in space". Today, they let him "crash" which means he spent the better part of an hour diving off a table onto an air mattress. Then they "squished him". He laid down on the mattress and the OT rolled a giant ball over him while laying on it! He LOVED it!! He had some alone time in the tunnels and also had speech therapy (which I shall hereafter call ST) in the ball pit. This is going to be really good for him. The OT said that she thinks a lot of his problem may be inner ear related ... since he has speech issues and doesn't like being upside down, etc. Basically, my little man is hyposensitive, which means that he craves touch, and they will help him learn how much is too much and how much is just enough. (I think we could all use a little OT actually!) She also said we should get a small jogging trampoline for his "deep touch" needs (I think he would jump on my bed all day if we let him), and also create a small space (in a closet or wherever) that is just for him to go and sit in. This made total sense to me, since he's already claimed the inside of the armoire in the living room. :)

He also saw an ST today and she said that he is doing really well, they just want to see more. He is also being tested through the school district for that, so we may just let the school district foot the bill for that one. I do not want to take him out of OT for anything though.

I'll give you a sensory processing for instance... yesterday, after Sammers first OT appointment, we went to Inflatable Wonder Hell... I mean Wonderland. After about an hour and a half Sumo was starting to wear down so we took a break for lunch, then we came back and he climbed into a tunnel and barricaded both ends from the outside world. He was sitting inside playing with a car. Whenever another child came by, he would start to screech at them to make them go away. I went and sat by him and told him that he needed to stop or he was going to get a time out. An older lady came over to me and told me that my child had "anger issues" and was "just so violent". I told her that yes, he had issues, and we were working through them, but that he was NOT violent! She said, "Well, I work with special kids. It's amazing how violent they can be." Shook her head at me and walked away. Ok. Anyone who knows Sam, knows that he is NOT violent. He is a chronically happy child, who doesn't know how to channel his energy. He is NOT violent. Grrrr... But I digress. The point is that Sammah had enough and it was time to leave. He had to shut himself in his tunnel once the over-stimulation had set in. Another example would be his inability to match his moods with his emotions. We were at the splashpad and some other big kids were chasing him with a water gun and he was screaming, but he was smiling. I told them to KNOCK IT OFF and they said, "but he likes it! He's smiling!" BAH!! Exactly.

Or when we went to see Toy Story 3 and he sat on the floor (bleck!!) crouched behind the seat in front of him peeking over to see it. He wanted to watch, but the theater was a bit much.

So that's that. I'll post updates as we go along. :)