Frelle
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Posts posted by Frelle
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she definitely has anxiety issues. she inherited that from me. In fact, it wasn't until I saw her anxiety so clearly that I started looking at my own and got on medication. It isn't helping me a whole lot, but things are better than they were before medication. I don't doubt that she would do well on medication, but I wonder if she is too young.
An example of her anxiety.. in the year of 2007, she was able to psychosomatically induce vomiting if she felt overly full. She didn't even need to be over-ful in actuality. She would also freak out during thunderstorms and run for the toilet.
I realize that anxiety can be co-morbid with sensory issues, like ADHD can be co-morbid with sensory issues. No one has really addressed her anxiety in the testing at her OT place, but acknowledge that often her anxiety is to things she hears, her auditory processing disorder.
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Seriously. I am so done. After 2 days back from Christmas break, I have a headache from my blood pressure being up so high for so long.
Grace has sensory processing disorder, sensory modulation dysfunction, developmental dyspraxia, and auditory processing disorder. She was diagnosed this fall. We dont have a sensory diet, but I need to get with her OT and get one, because I am just not having the time and brainpower to make a sensory diet for her.
She is also in early puberty, probably 6 months away from getting her period. So we have anxiety, rage, overreaction to stimulus, anxiety because of other children interrupting her when she is doing school with me, anxiety at doing school independently, backtalk attitude, consequences being given for infractions to conduct (she's not allowed to bang the table or stomp her foot repeatedly when she's frustrated, for example). She refuses to do any self calming activities even when her OT has told both of us that its her responsibility to initiate them, and to do them when I suggest them...
She looks like a normal child. But she's just not. And I dont have anywhere else to blow off steam.. all my friends with "garden variety" homeschooled kids just dont understand how her behaviour is affected by her sensory issues.
I need to re-read The Explosive Child and the Sensory Sensitive Child. And I need to make a conference appt with her OT.
But man, I cant believe I am right back where I was before Christmas break already with just being at the end of my rope trying to teach this resistant child.
Thanks for listening.
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it depends on your kids. I wont let my 9 and 6 yr olds watch LWW or Prince Caspian yet. Im most affected by the White Witch's cruel and abusive attitude, the battle scenes are second as far as why Im not having them watch it.
In general, my personal recommendation would be 8 or 10 and up for both LWW and Caspian, depending on your kid.
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we dont get the flu shot and despite Influenza Strain A hitting our house last March, even the 4 month old baby got it, it doesn't make me want to get a flu shot for my family.
Seems to me that the strains in the shot would be supressed in the community vaccinated against them, and any strain not in the shot would run rampant. So what you're more likely to get is a strain not in the shot whether vaxed or unvaxed.
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Grace, age 9: hits: mp3 player, digital camera, bindi the jungle girl bedding, baby doll, handheld hannah montana video game, american girl mini dolls kit and ruthie, snowflake pajamas, blue velour warmup set. Not so crazy about cheetah print pajamas.
Lily, age 6: hits: Our Generation Kaitlyn 18 inch doll, HSM handheld game, hopscotch floor rug, tinkerbell pajamas, cupcake maker kit, american girl samantha and nellie mini dolls
Felicity, age 3, hits: Little Einsteins laptop, Little Einsteins piano, Dora mermaid doll, Dora handheld game, Dora pajamas, wooden car ramp toy, winnie the pooh bath toy
Jackson, age 14 months, hits: wooden peg bench, roller piano toy, vintage fisher price garage and cars, boy baby doll.
Rob: Harry Potter Chocolate Frog stocking stuffer, Men's Wearhouse GC, iTunes GC, and Harry Potter Clue game. (He got an otter webkinz from Grace)
Jeni: Green wool coat, green suede purse, pink fuzzy pajamas, electric blanket, and grey squirrel webkinz (from Grace).
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Such beautiful families!!!
I can't scan the card, but here are the images we used in our card this year!
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yay!!! way to go Mr. 3lilreds for springing for those hot little tickets!!
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Last year in second grade, I would say 2 hours tops, plus some assigned reading to be done independently.
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Our family had Strain A last March, in Raleigh, NC. So we caught ours near the end of the season. My 5 yr old, 2 yr old, and 4 month old got it. We got it diagnosed when my 4 month old had it, 104.1 fever we went to the ER. My husband, myself, and my oldest daughter took TamiFlu and did not catch it, and it significantly reduced my 2 yr olds case of it since she was taking it as well.
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for me, homeschooling when the baby/toddler has gone down to one nap is the worst. For that first year, I am used to doing most of our schoolwork when the baby is taking a morning nap. When the only nap is in the afternoon, sometimes I have had to wait until that nap to do school and not school in the morning.
There is also the first 6 months or so when some days I was so sleep deprived that I had to pick between schooling during morning nap and taking a nap with the baby. That's hard too.
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For the first time this year, we got professional portraits done at a local chain store. They had asked us to be the promotional christmas test family with Santa, and we got some awesome ones to pick from! I usually try to get a good shot of the kids or our family, and print out some pictures at walgreens to include in dollar store christmas cards. My list varies each year, but I probably send out 50 and give in person about 25 more.
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I have a friend who works full time, and her daughter is having severe issues with endometriosis. Enough that she is accruing lots of sick days, seeing specialists, etc. Her mom feels that this year at least, she would do better being homeschooled. Her school is not understanding of her condition, and need for lots of sick days, and I guess it's getting to where she may fail or have to repeat the year.
Do you have any recommendations for virtual high schools, or a fairly self directed course of study? Her daughter is 16, has a summer birthday, so maybe is a junior this year. She would like to go to medical school and has had above average grades, if that matters in your recommendations.
Thanks for reading!
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Thanks for the replies!
I am familiar with Sensory issues, my older daughter has SPD, dyspraxia, sensory modulation dysfunction, and auditory processing disorder... Lily's issues are recognizable as sensory seeking, but compared to the severity of my oldest's, Lily's seem so mild as to not require therapy. I do want to have her evaluated, even if it turns out (as I suspect) that she would not require treatment.. at least I could have professional input and direction on putting together a sensory diet for her.
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ily scored between the 91st and 94th percentiles for total ADD Combined Score on the Brown ADD Scales for Children. This puts her just under the clinical level of diagnosis of 95%.
Her homeschool co-op teacher does not generally see any impairment of necessary activity, and that is what brought her total score down. If the teacher filling out the questionnaire had seen anything noteworthy, a clinical diagnosis would have been made. Her co-op teacher sees her once a week. I could not think of anyone else who sees her on a regular basis or in an educational setting, but none of her teachers have ever told us they had any concerns about her.
I should mention that I have not been concerned about her attention aspect, but concerned far more with her impulsivity and hyperactivity aspect. She is still young, Kindergarten age, and is very rarely in an atmosphere where she has to attend to things for long periods.. Sunday School, homeschool co-op, Bible Study, everything in her classes is age appropriate in length to accommodate for the attention span of young children. I was interested to see if she was having issues with disobedience or attention seeking or more with impulsivity control, and it would seem that there is something going on besides or in addition to the norm, since she scored in the borderline realm.
The report states: "Lily frequently displays 8 out of 9 hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms, and 8 out of 9 inattention symptoms. Dr. M. noted that during the interview with me, although activities and games were provided, Lily was constantly moving, turning upside down on the couch, rolling around on the floor, and walking around on her knees. During the testing sessions, Lily was very well behaved. She seemed motivated to perform well."
The psychologists's advice was to read up on ADD and ADHD, including the book Helping your ADD Child by Taylor. We were encouraged to monitor her inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms, and if they begin to inhibit her daily functioning at home and in academic settings, causing difficulties in her relationships, etc, we should have her re-evaluated.
It may be also that if she is receiving adequate sensory input to wear her out, like trampoline jumping and stuff, it will help moderate her hyperactive tendancies. Ive come across a lot of things while reading about Grace's sensory issues that would help Lily too. In the Sensational Kids SPD book, they have a chart with SPD Sensory Seeker in one column and ADHD hyerpactivity/impulsivity subtype in the other, and I really dont know which column fits Lily better.
Now I will be reading about ADHD and more about how to give her sensory input to see if it helps moderate her behaviour at all.
If anyone has any resources or advice in relation to homeschooling or behaviour modification, they would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for reading!
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Not bad, but unique. Names of my friend C's kids.. Yes, real and legal names. Yes, all one family.
Exclamation Mark
Theomatic
Mirth
Sparowe
Basiliskos
Other unusual names of people I know
Ebephania
Amerika
Karma
same family:
Misty Blu
Strawberry Field
Patsie and her twin Potsie (named after Aunt Potsie!)
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thanks for your experiences and information!!! I am going to work on a list of questions for her therapist, and would like to get a lot of input from her on sensory diet and when and how much, etc. I would ideally like to plan out her school day with sensory information at the start and during if necessary.
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Part 2:
Sensory Defensiveness:
in individuals with sensory defensiveness, the protective system overrides the discriminatory system, often resulting in hypersensitive responses to sensory input. It is an unusual degree of anxiety or discomfort as response to sensory events in the environment which are typically not threatening. These responses typically take the form of fight (reactive, explosive), flight (escape, distractible), or fright (reluctance, whiny, tearful). It can effect activity level (arousal), behaviour, and emotions as well as motor responses. Grace exhibits sensory defensiveness in reaction to certain auditory, tactile, visual, and some types of vestibular sensory input that her body perceives as harmful.
Tactile:
Grace exhibits significant hyper-responsivity, or avoidant behaviors to tactile input. Once she reaches her high threshold for tactile registration, she responds quickly with intense behaviors that may be considered extreme for the type of stimulus. For example, she may have a tantrum or a meltdown when asked to do grooming activities like brush her hair, or wear itchy, uncomfortable clothing. These behaviors are characteristic of a Sensory Modulation Disorder.
Oral Sensory:
Averse to meat and rice, and other food textures. Food texture avoidance is a characteristic of a Sensory Processing Disorder.
Auditory:
Grace exhibits hypersensitivity to auditory input. She is fearful of loud and high pitched noises often causing her to run away from these experiences or cover her ears. She is easily distracted in noisy environments, she has trouble working when there is background noise present, and she often has difficulty paying attention to auditory commands when in busy settings. Grace displays characteristics of an Auditory Processing Disorder as indicated by hyper-responsive behaviors to auditory input.
Visual:
Grace demonstrates some hypersensitive behaviors in response to visual input. She also has some trouble with letter reversals when writing. These characteristics can indicate difficulty processing visual input.
Proprioceptive:
Sense of muscle and joint activation, which provides information to the brain regarding the body's position in space and the grading of one's movement. Receptors in the muscles and joints are stimulated through activities such as pulling, pushing, climbing, jumping, and other resistive type of activities. Proprioceptive input is organizing to the nervous system as it brings the individual to a calm alert state.
Grace displays hypo responsive behaviors in regard to proprioceptive processing. Grace was able to complete more challenging and complex tasks after engaging in activities that provided strong proprioceptive feedback. She was more calm, organized, and alert.
Vestibular
Important for behaviour and motor coordination de to its contributions of balance and equilibrium reactions, muscle tone, coordination of eye and hand movements, ability to use both sides of the body together, arousal, and some aspects of language development.
Grace displayed both over and under responsiveness to vestibular input. She displays poor endurance and tires easily. She tends to seek out movement activities especially when she is trying to concentrate during homework or school related tasks. She has difficulty interpreting some types of vestibular input such as a fear response with heights. Grace also sought out spinning activities during the clinical observations, she displayed under responsiveness to rotary (going in a circle) input and seemed to need more of this type of input than other children to elicit a dizziness response. Grace's challenges with crossing the midline, letter reversals, delayed visual motor skills, and poor motor planning are also consistent with vestibular processing challenges.
Arousal:
An individuals state of alertness. Some people have high arousal level and are constantly on the go, and have a hard time calming down. Others present with a low arousal level in which they appear more lethargic, disinterested, and disengaged from their environments. Grace has difficulty modulating her arousal to a "just right" place. She tends to stay in a constant state of high arousal where she is constantly on the verge of shifting into sensory overload. Her sensory sensitivities to certain inputs can cause her arousal to escalate quickly and result in over stimulation. which can result in protective responses such as anxiety attacks, shut down, limited frustration tolerance, and flight from activities. It was noted was noted that Grace demonstrated more appropriate organization and attention to task through the gross motor portion of the evaluation, and this modulation was partly contributed to the intense amount of proprioceptive input these activities provided her.
Motor performance:
Grace's range of motion and strength appeared to be within normal limits, however, she did exhibit characteristics of low muscle tone. She also had difficulty maintaining an upright posture when walking over oversized pillows on the floor, indicating that her postural responses are diminished due to her under-responsive vestibular system. When allowed to seek out input in a sensory enriched environment, Grace sought out intense vestibular input such as swinging across a zip line or spinning in the hammock. These activities have an alerting and organizing effect on Grace. She had difficulty with gross motor planning and execution. She has difficulty figuring out how to coordinate her body to complete complex motor tasks, like copying movement patterns demonstrated by the therapist. She also shows difficulty coordinating movements that cross the midline of her body, indicating difficulty with bilateral separation. Overall, Grace’s gross motor skills are below average for a child of her age. She is quick to fatigue, and has a low frustration tolerance for challenging activities. She also has difficulties with sequencing and motor planning. Grace's difficulties with planning and organizing complex motor movements are consistent with the diagnosis of dyspraxia. Based on observation and parent report, her primary areas of need are within the organization and initiation stages of praxis.
Visual Motor Skills
Grace's visual motor integration and motor coordination skills are lower than average for a student her age. Her visual perception scores are higher than average for a student her age. When faced with a motor coordination component to a visual perception task, her abilities are taxed. From a developmental dyspraxia standpoint, Grace must cognitively put forth more effort to accomplish these types of tasks due to the motor challenges involved. Although her brain is correctly and efficiently processing visual input, delays with motor skills impair her visual motor integration skill. Grace was able to copy basic shapes, but presented with more complex pictures, she had difficulty with sizing, spacing, and directionality of lines to copy more complex forms.
Recommendations:
1. Occupational Therapy using a sensory integrative approach and fine motor development are recommended to address the issues that are negatively impacting Grace's ability to function at home, school, and in the community. 1 hr a week
2. It is recommended that a Therapeutic Listening home program be implemented with Grace. The primary goals are to decrease auditory sensitivity to loud and unexpected noise, and to improve auditory processing to help Grace filter out extraneous background noise.
3. It is recommended that Grace participate in a sensory diet at home and at school. A sensory diet is a plan of sensory based strategies used throughout the day to assist with appropriate sensory processing and modulation of arousal. Graces sensory diet should specifically include proprioceptive and vestibular input since these are currently means by which she is seeking organization.
4. Grace may benefit from a therapeutic skin brushing protocol to facilitate body awareness, modulate arousal, and decrease tactile sensitivities.
5. Grace should continue to participate in therapeutic strategies to help her improve her writing skills, handwriting without tears handwriting program, ocular motor skill development, improvement of distal motor coordination, and strengthening of trunk and upper extremities for improved postural and distal control.
I am also going to talk to her OT about putting together an Individualized Educational Program (IEP) for homeschooling.
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Grace is 8 yrs and 9 months old. She was found to have a lack of proper myelination when she was about 6 years old, due to yearly MRIs and EEGs from her seizure disorder followup. The myelination experts told me that her delays and sensory issues were due to the lack of myelination, but never explained it to me, and did not do any further followup.. just prescribed OT, PT, and Sensory Therapy. She had OT and PT (but not really any ST) when she was 6-7 yrs old, and I was not very happy about the place she was getting services. We switched to another office, and I love her therapist, and how comprehensive this evaluation was!
I will be meeting with her OT next week to go over the eval in more depth, but I wanted to post the findings here and see if any of this looks familiar to you ladies. I have been aware of Grace's gross and fine motor delays and sensory issues for almost 3 years, but she was officially diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder including Sensory Modulation Dysfunction, Auditory Processing Disorder, and Developmental Dyspraxia. The eval reported that on most of her issues, she is 2 standard deviations below the norm.
I am looking forward to working with the therapist to FINALLY get Grace going with a sensory diet. And I am interested to figure out how her low tone and postural issues, Auditory Processing Disorder, and Visual Motor delays are affecting our schooling, and what I can do/buy/provide. Let me know what you have used or are aware of if any of this looks familiar!
I have the full report if you're interested, but here are my notes.
Sensory Processing Disorder
Definition of sensory integration:
Sensory integration is the neurological process in which the brain organizes and interprets sensory information for use in daily life. Effective sensory processing allows a person to efficiently respond to environmental stimuli. Sensory input is received through several systems.. tactile, auditory, visual, taste, smell, proprioceptive (muscle and joint receptors in the body which provide information regarding the body's position in space), and vestibular (input to the receptors of the inner ear which respond to motion and changes in head position that contribute to the development of balance reactions, muscle tone, ocular control, bilateral integration, and the body's relationship to gravity). Sensory input provides a child with information about her environment. Appropriate sensory processing is necessary for a child to interpret environmental information and use it to successfully and purposefully respond to the demands within that environment.
All sensory information has to be organized and processed in order for an individual to respond adaptively. Some children may have difficulty processing, or making sense, of sensory input, and as a result of "faulty processing" demonstrate a variety of behaviors in accordance with their neurological thresholds.
Behavioral observation:
during fine motor evaluation, she was cooperative and talkative, demonstrated appropriate social skills and appropriate eye contact with therapist. After demonstrating some difficulty with suspended equipment, she quickly gravitated toward more sedentary activities such as drawing and writing. She needed prompting from therapist to more fully explore her surroundings. Grace was noted to become more animated and talkative after participating in several gross motor activities. She was observed to have trouble with motor planning to access several pieces of equipment and needed coaching from the therapist to keep trying when the activity proved to be challenging. Grace used several compensatory strategies when faced with challenging gross motor activities, she was noted to try and redirect play to more controlled activities such as pretend play, she would try to talk her way out of activities, and she also exhibited flight behaviors and refused to participate in activities completely. Grace was able to develop, explain, and implement problem solving strategies to help modify activities so they were less challenging in some instances. Grace was observed to seek out vestibular input through spinning, she appeared to need more intensity than other peers to reach her threshold, as evidenced by holding her head back to intensify rotary input yet never reaching a dizzy state during the activity. Grace had difficulty motor planning through multi step directions given by therapist and demonstrated some trouble sequencing actions that required timing or complex movement patterns, she did better with these tasks when they were visually demonstrated by the therapist or a peer. Grace displayed poor balance and low postural tone as evidenced by difficulty walking over large floor pillows and difficulty shifting weight to access suspended equipment.
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Yay Zachy!!! Way to go!!!
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The writing assignment for Jamestown is what I was struggling with in particular. We did the America, Land Of assignment after I was in class with her, and it went fine. I had a sick toddler and missed the second week, and we had to stay home the third week because the illness turned out to be coxsackie virus. So I havent been in class since week 1. Tomorrow is week 4.
I am not even getting to the IEW stuff. We didnt really do much with it the first week in class, and I am totally lost with regard to what I am supposed to do with using the ultra fine tip sharpie and making up sentence variations for the scriptures. Like where the heck do they get "Jesus, who laughed, wept" out of the Jesus wept verse?
It may be too much for *me*. But I feel like my daughter is capable of the work and that I just need to get my act together and do it for her. She did FLL level 3 last year.
Our tutor is awesome, and did tell me that I need to make sure that I am doing what she is capable of, however little or much that might be.
But I do need to figure out this whole sentence variation thing.
And I never ever want to miss a class again.
Thanks for your kind words!!
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assignments with my 3rd grade daughter is kicking my butt.
that is all.
*sigh*
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we use spelling plus and dictation plus, and love it.
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yep, we have no kids in our neighborhood either. All of our playing with children other than siblings is either "getting together" or "having a playdate". And I think playdate might be semantics, but it does imply a more formal get together than me taking my kids to my friends house. And I see a difference between "I want to hang out with Susan, and you get to play with her kids" and "I dont know Lilly's mom very well, but the two of you seem to like one another, so Lilly's mom and I want to get together so you can play".
I had neighborhood playmates as a kid. All ages. There was never a need for a playdate like this. But we have a need.
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we are in the midst of having our 5 yr old daughter evaluated for ADHD. She doesnt so much have attention issues as she has hyperactivity issues. She also has some sensory issues (she is a sensory seeker). I have not looked into any books about ADD or ADHD yet.
Ice storm coming: Would you leave ahead of it?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
the only ice storm we have lost power with was when I had a week old infant, no fireplace, no generator, and no wood stove. It was not a pleasant experience to live with my neighbors, that I didnt even know, for a week.
If there were an ice storm headed here, I would likely drive somewhere with the kids. If I couldn't get anywhere to see people I knew well, I would head over to 3lilreds house, because I've been invited if we ever lose power again! :)