Sensory Overload-how to help?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-21-2001
Sensory Overload-how to help?
5
Sat, 08-13-2005 - 11:15pm

My 4-year-old son Ethan was diagnosed just after he turned 3. We saw very little improvement for the first 9 months after diagnosis, and in the past 6 months have seen some huge gains. What have we been doing? Facilitated playdates 2x/week, vitamin supplementation, chelation and an aide at preschool 1.5 hrs/day during free play. Really, truly this combination has been a winner.

Our biggest problem remains sensory overload. At a park, at our house (where he's bored with all the toys), in the car, at snack time, Ethan does fairly well socializing. But put him in any kind of new, chaotic or toy-filled environment and you can forget about friends, peers, adults, anyone. He becomes completely consumed by objects. I try to simply minimize his exposure to overstimulation environments, and I try to hold all play dates at our house. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Sat, 08-13-2005 - 11:22pm

IMO, Ethan needs to be evaluated/treated by an Occupational Therapist trained in Sensory Theory. It quite literally changed our lives. Contact your SD about an evaluation, because private therapy is rarely covered by insurance and is very expensive.

Also, check "The Out of sync child" by Carol Stock Kranowitz out of your local library and see if it speaks enough to you to buy a copy of it and it's companion book.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

-Paula

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-24-2004
Sun, 08-14-2005 - 4:27pm

Actually, this problem sounds like a mix of distractability and an effort to control input to me. We have the same sort of problem, only it is with Cassian's fixation on books. I have to plan playdates and any other time we work on social interaction far away from books. Books are kept in Cassian's room, and we do social interaction work in other places in the house, much like your plan. Initially, if I wanted eye contact, I had to have Cassian do activities with me on the stairway where there were no pictures or anything (he even got distracted by writing on my sweatshirt once!). Cassian does well away from home now, but it took about a year to wean him off the need to have a book in his hand to cope with the novelty and rapid uncontrolled flow of information.

In Relationship Development Intervention (RDI), there is a useful technique, called productive uncertainty. In PU, you gradually expose the ASD child to little uncertain moments that end up being fun. You work up to things like an outing in the park or grocery store from smaller easier things. So, one thing you might start doing is try to give your child little surprises that are manageable and fun. This will help with adaptability in the longrun.

What also helped Cassian a lot was for us to use a game called "Sneaky Pete." We would tell him we were going to play initially, but later we just played at random without telling him. In Sneaky Pete, you sneak up on the child, which forces them to social reference you (look at you). If they look at you before you get to them, they get to "freeze" you with their eyes. The minute their eyes are off you, you can move again. If the child doesn't pay attention, you do something fun, like tickle them. This game helps kids who get hyperfocussed on toys/books/etc. to switch attention better, which may be a part of your child's problem. Improving attention switching also helps ASD children to become more adaptable because part of their problem may be slow attention switching when things are moving fast and unpredictably around them (part of the problem with sensory overload for many kids).

You can also apply deep pressure, if you think sensory overload is the real problem. In this case, you would remove distracting items from the environment and try holding your child if he seems overwhelmed. If the child seems ready to play, getting him into a repetitive loop of activity initially may also help because this is often calming to an ASD kid. An example of a repetitive loop would be going to the park and chanting "We're going up the slide....we're going up the slide....we're going up the slide......oh-oh! Wheeee!" Do this same routine over and over a few times and see if your child orients to you and imitates. After the child has learned the routine the idea would be to vary the game slightly. This variation is also an example of productive uncertainty, and it keeps the child's attention on a social partner, rather than on repeating a script over and over.

Predictable social routines and games help to pare down the complexity of situations that might otherwise be overwhelming to such children. Once they seem secure and orienting to you, you can change the routine slightly while still giving them support. As you experiment with this basic pattern, you may see your child getting more adaptable and needing to hyperfocus on objects less because he is figuring out how to use your support to understand and adapt to complex dynamic environments.

Hopefully, these ideas will get you started or inspire you to work out the problem differently. We have seen our son become much more adaptable after a year of using these methods. In a sense, the book obsession has become more of a habit than an activity that helps him escape complex dynamic environments. These days, we just tell him to put the book down because we are going to do something different, and we usually don't get any resistance.

Suzi

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-24-2005
Sun, 08-14-2005 - 7:29pm
I would have to reiterate what Paula said. Occupational Therapy has been a godsend for Chase (7/AS). We've been doing deep pressure therapy at home when he starts to "run about" aimlessly. We do this little game where we roll him up in a blanket and we pretend we're making burritos(sp?). We roll him up relatively tight and them I put on an accent like a Mexican chef (but it really sounds Italian 'cause I'm not so great at accents) and we pour toppings him: pillows for tomatoes, small blankets for lettuce and then we put light ankle weights on him as sour cream. He absolutely loves it and it helps his brain really feel what his body is doing(does that make sense?). They're is a company that makes a lightweight spandex undershirt that provides a similar sensation that we are going to try during school. The name of the company is Spio Works and you can Google them to get all the info. Sincerely, Vicky
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-21-2001
Sun, 08-14-2005 - 10:31pm
Wow. thanks for all this great information and reminders. We actually did RDI for about 6 months, but our consultant dumped us as we were a 45 minute drive from her office and she was coming to us. Since then, I haven't motivated to keep it going on my own, and there are no consultants local in our area. I think that RDI is amazing, it's just SOOO time intensive and I got really burnt out. A lot of my efforst have gone into biomedical lately, but I can't forget how important the RDI tools are. We did indeed do OT for almost a year now, but I have not been happy with the OT"s at all. They basically just play with my son, and it's hard for me to see the $106/hr therapeutic valuye when I could do the exact same stuff.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-24-2004
Mon, 08-15-2005 - 4:48am

Hattie,

I know what you mean about RDI burning you out. I am now pregnant w/ #2, and I just have no energy to do what I was doing last year with Cassian. Before my pregnancy we did the following per day: 1.5 hrs of floortime, 30 mins RDI labtime, 1-2 RDI lifestyle activities, 4 hrs SPED preschool, and 1 hr therapy (OT, speech, music) outside of school. Often, I did additional work in OT at home with our son that was combined with RDI or floortime. I am not running the same intensive program now, needless to say, and I probably won't be able to get back to doing anything close to this for a year or so because of the new baby.

We have prioritized at this point, focussing on floortime (at least 1 hr per day), OT, behavior mod, and some RDI that is mostly done through lifestyle. We had to add the behavior mod because a lot of discipline issues came up this year with DS's newly developed abilities to think and act on his own.

I was thinking that maybe, you could pick one issue to work on for your DS, like adaptability to new environments. Then, interject a few productive uncertainty moments throughout the day for him to increase this. Doing frequent field trips has helped us get DS to adapt better, and although I try to mix things up for him, I almost always do a schedule of the major events for the day. I find that a written schedule (you can use pictures for a child who doesn't read), reduces compliance issues too.

It sounds like your DS's social interaction is coming along great if he is able to handle playdates well. My son (age 5.5) is still not able to play well with other kids, so we mostly work on his interactions with adults these days. DH, my Mom, or I try to act like a peer sometimes to challenge him to adapt, but he still tries to lead the interaction a lot.

Suzi