Knowlege of sensory issues in toddlers?

[jenn]

Does anyone have any knowhow in this dept?

Anyone have a kiddo' with sensory issues?

I'm at my wits end with J.
She is currently sitting in the other room rubbing herself down with strawberry pudding.
Earlier she was eatting play-doh without flinching.

I'm begining to wonder with some of her behaviors if she has a mild form of autism.
Her older half bro has a moderate case too.

Well I better go clean her up...
But if anyone has any insight.....

Thanks.

Jennie (24)
Shad DH (28)

Jaidyn 1.24.01 (30 wkr)
Severe PE/HELLP
2lb. 12oz.

Heavenly Angel:
Blaze
12.6.03
(miscarriage)

EDD- Thanksgiving! 11.25.04

http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/j/jaid/ (updated May 26th, u/s photos in J's gallery)

[angelical]

Have you had her evaluated by an early intervention program? Any child 3 and under are eligible for free screening, testing, and therapy.

Good luck!
Sharel

------------------------
Sharel O'Connell
Local coordinator for Pittsburgh area
'Parents of Preemies' co-moderator
Survivor of Preeclampsia, HELLP Syndome, & preemie parenting
Future adoptive mom

Aaron (28 weeker, 5/2/02) -- my tiny guy is TWO!
Kevin - DH

[kylesmom]

Hi Jennie- First let me say I am so sorry about Blaze... and congratulations on being pregnant again!!! I am a Speech/Language Pathologist and most recently I have worked in a wonderful special education preschool program and now with an early intervention program. If you have any concerns about sensory issues you might want to consider an occupational therapy evaluation... Since Jaidyn is 3 just call your school system and request an evaluation- they'll take it from there. If you don't mind my asking- what specifically makes you question if she is on the autism spectrum?

I also have some concerns re: sensory stuff with Kyle, but I am holding off a little bit. Time will tell.

Good luck and keep in touch here [:)]

Jennifer 32
Kyle born 8-13-03 @ 38 weeks (severe atypical Preeclampsia and Class I HELLP)

[jenn]

Sharel and Jennifer,
Thanks for responding!
J was in early inter. until she turned 3. Than we got the boot. But she was eval'd by our school dist and they thought she was doing okay for her age at that time, minus her language skills. Really got us by surprize that they just let us go like that.
But all in all they said to wait and send her to pre-school with the "others" (kids her age).
So another "Child Find" came up (school dist. eval for devolpment)
So I took her. All the people there were sooo mad at what they saw (meaning she wasn't getting the help she needs) I thought GREAT we will get help this time! But no. She would have to be 4 and go to another eval to go to public school. GRRR!
So again I took the advice of the speech therp. at the child find and called Children's Hosp. in Denver and found they have speech therepy in my commu. Great! But what about this "other stuff"?
I can't find the right help. So I called J's Dr. and hope she can help.
And as for the mild autism concern, I see some things that worry me.
She can't change ANYTHING in her routine!
She has attachments to things. (watches Harry Potter noon to night on repeat)
Speech delays (don't understand half of her words)(three word sent. tops)
Repeats all her phrases non stop. "ba ba mama, ba ba mama"....until she gets it.
Still on bottles. BIG food aversion. Doesn't eat.
Hates to be around other kids to the point she gets physically ill.
Sensory integration to no end. (naked lover, rubs herself with paint, butter, pudding, anything she can get her hands on, eats soap, Don't brush her teeth or hair. Shoes come off faster than they go on.)
under and over sensitive to touch/pain.
(won't let me put her in her carseat - says ouch! NO! crys fits)

So that concerns me. But it could just be bad sensory problems.
All I know is that it has it's good and bad days. And today would be one of those bad days!
If anything it felt good to vent this out.
Everyday can be trying, to live attempting to please her onstop.


Jennie (24)
Shad DH (28)

Jaidyn 1.24.01 (30 wkr)
Severe PE/HELLP
2lb. 12oz.

Heavenly Angel:
Blaze
12.6.03
(miscarriage)

EDD- Thanksgiving! 11.25.04

http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/j/jaid/ (updated May 26th, u/s photos in J's gallery)

[deerhart]

OKAy

99.9999% of people have some sensory issues. It is a perfectly natural thing to have. On the other hand, for some people those natural things are so severe they interfere with their life. it is at that point that therapy is needed.

Since she is rubbing herself with pudding and eats playdoh, you can assume she does not have a tactile sensory issue or an oral sensory issue. She could crave sensory input (which is fairly normal for many toddlers) or she could just be exploring her world.
As for the autism thing, remember that for an autism diagnosis she has to have a SEVERE social interaction problem, which is NOT cuased by her speech delay. At such a young age its difficult to tell the difference between the autistic social delays and social delays caused by speech delays.
For example, some of the things they mention in Alex
1) he tends to avoid eye contact
2) He does not seem to engage other people in most social interactions (but if he is one on one or two on one he will)
3) He has little to no conversation speech (He cannot sustain a conversation, but its unclear whether this is being caused by his expressive speech delay or by something else)
4) he is very routine, but he is also starting to adapt where things can be changed on him with explination
5) Echolalia, he repeats things a lot, this is also a normal thing for kids to do as its part of the learning process of langauge. He will repeat things when h is bored, but he will also use canned phrases when he doesn't know the right words to express himself, over the last year this has started to diminish quite a bit.
6) He is extremely active, he also takes his shoes off whenever he can, and we have spent the last year working on getting him to not scream bloody murder when washing his hair or getting a hair cut.. its improving, slowly but it is.

Alex was also on a bottle until almost age 3, it was a routine and we were not able to break it until Mason came along (and suddenly bottles were for babies not big boys). Both my children love to be naked, they strip whenever they can. it is a normal phase for those between 18 months and 4 years old. Alex does it less and less now at 4 and Mason more and more as he reaches 2.
It sounds like there is some mixture of pickiness on food and I am not sure how they fix that, but for it does sound like she is seeking out sensory (rubbing stuff on hrself) and the way they work on that is by brushing (a simpler way of doing this is to take something soft and using some pressure rub it up and down her arms, back etc..) and weighted vests, though also remember its not THAT unusual for a 3 year old to cover themselves in messy stuff like paint, pudding, etc.. (Alex used to rub his applesause into his hair) Here, the closer he got to 3 1/2-4 the more these things disappeared.

One book you might want to read is the Out of Sync Child, which deals with sensory issues in Children. Also one of the keys is to recognize what sets your child off and try to limit/avoid those situations.. like I know that I can take Alex out for 1-2 hours before he will need some quieter time to refocus himself or he will start to get whinny and tantrum because he's over stimulated.

Alex was evaluated for sensory issues and his OT said he had some moderate issues (she also gave us tips to work on the hair thing) but they were not severe enough to require treatment, but she did work on his ability to retask himself. Over the summer he went from not being able to move from one task to another within 60 minutes (without tantruming) or moving from soemthing he loved to something he hated without tantruming, to being able to change tasks every few minutes with little to know tantuming and it didn't matter how much he liked hated the activity.

It may be worth while to see if your insurance will cover a consultation wtih an OT, even if they won't cover the therapy, the OT may be able to give tips on what you can do on your own. Another option may be contacting an OT program near you to see if they do free evaluations asnd therapy or reduced cost stuff for student training. Some insurances will cover evaluations but not the therapy after that.

It is very hard here to get OT therapy for sensory issues since the state and school district do not recognize it as a seperate OTdisorder, instead you have to have another OT type delay (gross/fine motor skills) in which they then treat the sensory issue as a secondary thing that plays into the other delay. If its all sensory usually you have to do it privately.

HTH's
Erin

Moderator - Parents of Preemies
Missouri State Coordinator
Mommy to Alex (4)and Mason (1 1/2)
Law Student - 1 year done, 2 to go

[jenn]

Thanks for all the info.
I really just need to calm down.
I love Jaidyn so much, and I worry that I'll fail her someway.
Good to know things will be okay.
She was just having one of those days that wore me out. The same could have been said about today. I took it a little better though.

Next time I'll check here again to make sure it's just another case of her pushing her 3 yr old limits on me and nothing more. :o)

Much love to you all!

Jennie (24)
Shad DH (28)

Jaidyn 1.24.01 (30 wkr)
Severe PE/HELLP
2lb. 12oz.

Heavenly Angel:
Blaze
12.6.03
(miscarriage)

EDD- Thanksgiving! 11.25.04

http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/j/jaid/ (updated May 26th, u/s photos in J's gallery)

[deerhart]

hehe don't think a thing about freaking out. We are in the process of having Alex evaluated for many different things with a psych and a nuerologist.
It was extremely relieveing for the psych to rule out autism and say at the most it may be mild ADD, but that his langauge delay (mixed receptive/expressive delay) may be the cuase of the behaviors that fall in the ADD catagory and not ADD.

At such a young age its so hard to tell if the behaviors and other things our kids exhibit are being caused by one thing or another. So many behaviors can be caused by more then one thing (including being a normal preschooler!) and of course once you start to see one thing as being wrong we pyschoanalyze everything else.

Erin

Moderator - Parents of Preemies
Missouri State Coordinator
Mommy to Alex (4)and Mason (1 1/2)
Law Student - 1 year done, 2 to go