Here, I will attempt to construct Brad's sensory profile:
"Ho-hum"/Sensory Disregarder (more on the profile here):
- Brad appears to react less intensely to sensations than a typical child. For example, a month ago, Brad and Jeremy were playing with a balloon which, predicably, popped. Jeremy (typical, age 5) shrieked and then cried. Brad was completely unfazed.
- I can't say he's impervious to pain, but he doesn't cry a lot.
- We've been taking Brad to restaurants for as long as I can remember and he has never once melted down or appeared upset or overwhelmed by the noise.
- He has the issues with muscle tone, postural stability, binocularity and bilateral coordination that characterize dyspraxia and underresponsivity.
Vestibular dysfunction: going back as early as 24 months, I observed his habit of turning our play balls into exercise balls. He puts them under his bum and bounces for vestibular stimulation.
Procieptive dysfunction: He loves swimming, and I think that has something to do with proceiptive input; he flaps (mostly when he's excited or aroused); and he has a habit of flopping on his favorite ball. (Yes, he has a favorite; it's orange; he gets pissy if anyone other than him so much as looks at it.) I think the flopping on the ball has to do with procieptive input (versus when he's bouncing on it, which is vestibular or motion).
Tactile: he touches his face a lot, mostly near his nose and his mouth. His school OT said it may be because there are a lot of nerve endings there.
Auditory: he doesn't respond to name consistently; sometimes seems aloof.
Visual: atypical eye contact.
Taste/smell: nothing that I've observed.
6 comments:
Sounds like my son when he was little. We thought he was deaf because he didn't respond to noise or his name. He does now : )
He also still flaps when he is excited and does a lot of touching his cheeks when he is happy.
He loves his exercise balls!
Do you have sensory tools for him to get the sensory input he is seeking? When Stepehen was little he used to love being swung in a blanket by me and my husband. He is so big now that he has to get that swinging sensation from his glider rocker, porch swing or a regular swing.
Queenbuv3 - we're lacking in that department. I would love to get a trampoline but we don't have the space for it.
My son loves the mini trampoline at school. So we bought him one and he hasn't used it more than a few seconds. My daughter does though so at least it isn't going to waste!
We didn't have the room either until we moved to our new apartment. The ball pit is a big hit with him but it does require a lot of room!
Alec also flops on his therapy ball. He runs and flops on his belly right onto it. He jumps so much he ruined a couch - we finally got a trampoline. He sucks his fingers, he licks things, he crashes into the floor and the walls on purpose, he likes the shower dangerously hot, he is either hyer or practically in a coma. There is not much middle ground. He is very unregulated.
Whoa, Brad and Charlotte's SPD sound quite similar. She falls in the low arousal-needs more stimulation arena, thus why I think she's such a seeker. We see it play out all the time.
Wow, sounds so much like Rhema. I've always wondered about smell (and by extension, taste)... she does not seem to have a sense of smell at all. If she were more verbal that's one of the things I would ask her about. Noise has never seemed to really bother her either.
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