It took an occupation therapist about two minutes of observing Lleyton this morning to concur with our pediatrician that Lleyton could be struggling with sensory processing disorder.
What is Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)? SPD is a neurological disorder causing difficulties with processing information from the five senses (vision, auditory, touch, olfaction, and taste), the sense of movement, and/or the positional sense.
Sara and I have been concerned with Lleyton's incredible pain tolerance and his disregard for any sort of fear of falling or running into things or getting hit by things for quite awhile now. We, at first, thought it was just a stage and as he grows older things would settle down. That didn't happen, so we began researching and consulted our physician. She recommended that we see an occupational therapist. Today was the day. We took our little man into the Children's Hospital and it looks like we will be spending a bit more time there. As of right now, we are scheduled to take him to therapy every other week for 6 months.
Our hope is that will be enough time to address the disorder and teach Sara and I how to effectively help him. We want to move past the days of him putting his little hand on the inside of a hot oven door without so much as a whimper (which happened on Thanksgiving, his hand turned red and blistered, but it didn't bother him one bit).
Updates forthcoming.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI stumbled onto your blog today and thought I would say hi! Sounds like you've got a sensory seeker--me too. :)
We have been in OT off and on for four years; you will learn a lot about SPD from your OT which will allow you to help your son at home just like you hope! I am sure of it! My oldest has SPD, and is adopted from foster care. We still struggle, but in different ways now. :)
Thanks for sharing and good luck,
Hartley
www.hartleysboys.com