A Peek Into Our World-Sensory Issues 101

WARNING! Technical Mumbo Jumbo Ahead! But you might learn something too. Enter at your own risk.

Son #2 had a meltdown a few weeks back & "chinned" the teachers desk at school, breaking off parts of his two front teeth. He has a nice upside V for a hole there now. I call him Bunnicula now. But with this injury & discomfort has come many, many meltdowns with son#2 lately. He's unpredictable and it's not pretty. There have been many, many time outs in his room. So with meltdowns come people who stare. And many people who don't understand. The world is filled with plenty of people who don't want to understand. But for those of you that do, and are curious what a little part of Autism FEELS like--I wrote this.

I attended a Sensory Integration seminar at the therapy place my kids go to. Some of it was stuff I knew, other parts were eye opening. I figured if they were illuminating to me, some of you in contact with anyone like my children, might benefit from my interruption so why not share some of the internal processing that goes on with kids on the Autism spectrum.

You have your five basic senses that we all learn in school. Then there are three HIDDEN senses. Kind of like your Spidey senses. However kids on the AS (Autism spectrum), don't have an easy time FEELING these things that are second nature to us. This is where we need Sensory Integration for them. And SI (sensory integration) are different therapies that help them register the sense or feeling.

Tactile discrimination is the first & the most primitive sense. Your hair on your body is able to help discriminate some things with this sense. Like when you get that tingle on the back of your neck? Another example is your ability to determine what is in your hand without looking. If you're blindfolded & someone puts a feather in your hand and a rock in the other hand. You're able to differentiate between the two & tell what they are by tactile discrimination. And you don't really remember anyone teaching you how to do that do you? That's why theses senses are considered hidden or innate.

Then there's vestibular sense which has a lot to do with your posture and balance. It's like having a protective system within you. It tells you which way is up, how your body is oriented in relation to up, how your body is moving in space and when to throw up. When you start to fall you put your hands out in front of you. We say it's instinct but really it's called vestibular sense.

The last hidden sense is called proprioception and has a lot to do with muscles and joints & the nerve endings in them that send the messages to the brain. This sense lets you know how heavy something is, how far down it is when you take a step and it is stimulated by gravity. When you get up all groggy in the morning & go to the cupboard to reach in for your coffee cup, you know how much force to use for picking up the weight of that cup. If you close your eyes and extend an arm out to the side and then to the front, there is a sensing of where the hand is located in space in relation to the body itself. Especially when the muscles of the hand are flexed. Try it. You sense/feel the arm more (eyes closed!) when your hand is in a fist. That's because you're stimulating nerves by making that fist.

The reason these senses are important is because SI (sensory integration) is the foundation of emotional regulation & learning. You want to know about Autism? Non-Verbal Autism? It's hard to get in their heads & tell you what's going on or how they feel, but this might enlighten you. We knew what it was, but now we know WHAT causes these meltdowns to happen to son#2.
Autism is a neurological problem in the brain. It's essentially roadblocks that don't allow communication & other basic fundamentals, things we don't even remember learning, to happen in a normal way. Because of this neuro/nerve problem, things are wired a tad differently inside of them. Where it's easy for us to use our hidden senses, theirs are either too heightened or to dull for them to get the messages their nerves are sensing. Therefore we have to stimulate them to FEEL & SENSE these things. These basic skills help our "neuro makeup" & underlying learning process to progress and react in a developed way.

Here is the best example of this I can use. When son#2 can't figure out how to communicate what he's wanting to one of us, or can't figure out how to tell us how he feels, he melts down. A meltdown is just the new word for tantrum. But you can imagine at 96lbs and 7 years old, there's more heft behind the kicking & screaming. Remember my post about the terrible two's? Those are manageable tantrums...when it goes to the extreme, we call it a meltdown. Scratching, flailing around, wailing and much gnashing of teeth. The severity of this is determined by several things. How badly he wants or needs "it" whatever it is at that moment. How tired he is, how hungry he is, how many times he has to take us to the place or item to get his point across, if we've said no and if he is due for his meds.
The medicine allows son#2 to reel back in the emotions and fervor and get it back together enough to function again. Sometimes he's too far gone & it takes an hour or more to get himself back together. Part of this is maturity. All kids learn this when transitioning from baby to child. Other parts are where an Autistic brain is different than our own. (thought I'd forgotten my point didn't you?) Son #2's brain, isn't processing the same information as ours when we're doing the exact same task. Because of his deficits in that area, it will interfere with the creation of ideas or connecting them together, and analytical thinking. Hence the non-verbal part.

When people say the Autism spectrum is wide ranged, they aren't kidding. No kid is exactly like another in the world, and Autistic kids get even more unique and personalized in their way of learning, communicating and finding their way in the world.
The perfect example of this uniqueness is son#1 is getting over stimulation to his sensory system. Whereas son#2 is not getting enough. Now this isn't true with EVERYTHING, but with most things, this is how they are integrating. Over & under. Yet, both are Autistic.
So son#2 feels better when he swings. This goes back to the point of vestibular sensing. It calms him because he isn't processing what he's sensing correctly. He isn't sure of what he's feeling. He's not sure of his body in the world. Sort of like an astronaut in space? So swinging stimulates the inner ear where gravity & our body are centered & gives son#2 extra stimulation to FEEL himself there. Other ways are weighted vests and blankets sort of like the x-ray apron they give you at the doctor's office. It's weighted & feels good to them. Like yoga, they feel centered & that allows them to feel calm. We like calm. You can learn better when you're calm.
Jumping is the best thing though. All those endorphins released by jumping & bouncing up against things. You feel alive & very happy. Or that's what their faces say to me.

So maybe I've given you a little peek into what it's like to be Autistic. Maybe you see now where some of the frustration comes from in those kids you see melting down. Doesn't always make it easy to deal with, but that kid at the store, may need more than that spankin you're thinking of. Would you feel that way if he was blind? Without certain senses I think there's an adjustment period where your body & your brain have to come to terms with each others abilities. This takes time and patience. And more importantly, there's a learning curve. Whether this Autistic Spectrum child is in your classroom, your church or is in your family--you are his classmate. His learning curve will effect you. Why not help him out? It'll help YOU out in the long run.

10 Years Old

I struggle with my oldest son turning ten years old yesterday. I'm not sure I know how this happened--it seems all of the sudden he's getting hair on his upper lip & legs. He doesn't want to sit on my lap or let me kiss him in public. It went slow in parts but sped up near the end here. When people tell you it goes faster the older you get, BELIEVE THEM.
The funniest thing is, he's in less of a hurry than I am for him to grow up.

Son #1 has been worrying about getting older. Last night he finally answered me when I asked why he didn't want to grow up & be older.
"Because then I'll die, and I don't want to die!" Aww! I had to explain that he won't die, and even if he did it would be a long time from now. I looked back at all the times during his interest in death in recent years, when we had consoled him by saying, "Everyone dies, but you won't die till you're old(er)." Mr. Literal took that to heart it seems. All month he's been saying, "I don't want to grow up & be a big boy!" or "I dont want to be ten, I want to go backwards & be eight years old!" My response? "Honey, I've tried that since I was 29 years old--doesn't work."

He had a great birthday, enjoyed money in the mail & from the bus drivers. (we do have the best here) So last night I took him to Wal-Mart to shop. We got Shrek 3, a "Bling Bling Lightning McQueen" car, and some Lego Clone Storm Troopers. (I bet I botched that last name up...)
All mommy had to contribute was $.27--not too shabby! We got him a Millienum Falcon with "crew" that were from the Galactic Hero sets & some more Lego Clone Troopers. Even the cake was Star Wars & strawberry as he requested, but he didn't partake. Maybe one day he'll eat his own birthday cake.

Son#1 had also been asking for a Wii controller for his birthday, I very nicely explained that wasn't what he was getting. Interestingly enough, I think he would have been happy with just the controller. Hubbo informs me in a household where I'm outranked 4 to 1 in sex, a game system is imminent or a birthright, I'm not sure which. He's just trying to decide between an XBox360 or a Wii. But I have my OWN system I plan to implement when that time comes though. I feel son#1 should earn his time to play video games. So I'm stealing an idea from a friend of placing time values on poker chips in 15 minute allotments. Then he can do chores like bringing me trash from the bathroom, help when we ask to bring us something, etc. And if the surly boy attitude insues that seems to have overtaken him the past year, he coughs up a chip/playing time. This ought to work. I'm very optimistic actually. Now, the big question is, will it work on Hubbo?

Signed-"Tired Of It" in Tulsa

I wrote this a couple of months back & let it sit in my drafts folder while I contemplated my wording. I emailed it off this morning after a couple of revisions. Hopefully I'm not the only one tired of seeing/hearing about dead kids in every news headline.



I start by saying I've been a huge fan of "XYZ News Channel" and your web site since 9/11. My husband and I became news hounds as much of America did then. We watched your whole evening line-up of shows and felt that we got to know the very personable hosts you have for each news piece or segment. Over the years, we've grown attached to and worried for A. Kelly, B. Leventhal and C. Harrigan out in the field. Each show has it's own flavor & we've appreciated what each host brings to the table. We consider "XYZ News" hard hitting and a high caliber of honest journalists.

I've also appreciated how you don't assume your viewers are ignorant and don't talk down to us. No matter how many people doubt it, we do believe you let us, the people at home, decide for ourselves once you present the facts. We've also been fans of the web site. I've had it as my homepage on my computer for years now. I check it several times a day & update my husband at work where there's "breaking news". I didn't really care for the last change of the appearance on the web page, but I remained a fan & kept with it even though I felt it was harder to navigate & follow.

However, I tell you this to let you know now I am finding a huge disappointment in your web site lately. The past 8 months or so I've noticed the main headlines at the top that greet me every morning are not pleasing. I realize the real world is full of displeasing people and things. It's not all unicorns & rainbows out there. But to have the story or headlines I see every morning to be about children dying in our country at the hands of their parents has me sickened and fed up.

Most recently when I logged on, I've seen someone has murdered their three month old baby & then thrown him and his carseat from their car on the highway. And there is this beautiful baby's picture large as life staring at me next to the headline. Or very recently the toddler beaten to death with the video game controller. While I am saddened by the deaths of celebrities, athletes and people who've touched our country's history that are reported, I can accept their deaths much easier. Maybe some of us being mothers we are affected more deeply by those horrific things. But I honestly believe, no one wants to hear any more about these cases so prominently and so very often in our daily news. My friends and I have talked about it, my husband has agreed. It's not necessary.

I really believe now after seeing so many, that the attention these heinous crimes receive, breeds more. I'm asking you to please not tell me at the top of your web page, so boldly displayed, about the mother who microwaved her baby. Don't show me pictures of what a sweet baby he was. I can't take any more. I no longer need to be told about the sex crimes and hate, touching the children of the world EVERY morning with my coffee or while I eat my dinner. Your headlines alone chill me sometimes. They can effect ones mood for the next hour or sicken you from taking that next bite of food. Just reading the words stays with me like pictures from an accident you wish you'd never seen.

I'm asking you to at least highlight these terrible stories in a certain color and relocate them down the page so when my eyes skim your headlines, I can choose not to read the words. With television, you can change the channel or mute it. With Internet though, it's different. Please do something where I don't have to know the horrific details to each & every crime to a child in this country. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll be forced to find a new homepage for my browser.

~A Sincere Fan, But Tired Of It
Tulsa, Oklahoma