The things I marked off under the hypsosensitivity to movement section include :
__ in constant motion, can't seem to sit still
__ craves fast, spinning, and/or intense movement experiences
__ loves being tossed in the air
__ always jumping on furniture, trampolines, spinning in a swivel chair, or getting into upside down positions - she will try to stand on her head anyway possible, hands on the ground, one foot up in the air, with her head down between her hands, she just hasn't quite mastered standing on her head, but she's working on it...its a daily battle almost to keep the couch cushion ON the couch! She loves to bounce, jump, hop, you name it. Her most favorite activity is to jump on our bed, when she's able to get into the bedroom. She's even climbed up onto my dresser and jumped from the dresser to the bed - there's an average of about 6 inch space between the two when she is able to get onto the dresser, just because the bed gets pushed against the dresser so I can open & shut our bedroom door.
__ loves to swing as high as possible and for long periods of time
__ is a "thrill-seeker"; dangerous at times - QUITE dangerous, QUITE often...I think I have gray hair now...and I've not even hit 30 yet!
__ always running, jumping, hopping etc. instead of walking - this one is hit and miss, as she WILL walk, if I make her hold my hand and stay pace with me...which could be counted as a quick walk by most 2 year old standards, since I am quite long legged, but she keeps pace beautifully.
__ likes sudden or quick movements, such as, going over a big bump in the car or on a bike - she LOVES going down the dirt roads & hilly roads, any dip whatsoever in the road produces a "weeeeee" from her, even if she had immediately before the "weee" been fussing
Then the Sensory seeking behaviors are :
__ seeks out jumping, bumping, and crashing activities - Mikeal really seems to enjoy this..
..as he's often the "target"__ stomps feet when walking - depends on the shoes she's wearing, the louder clack she can get out of her shoes the harder she stomps, she rarely stomps when barefoot
__ kicks his/her feet on floor or chair while sitting at desk/table
__ bites or sucks on fingers and/or frequently cracks his/her knuckles - not really so much, but she does bite her toe & finger nails...CONSTANTLY! I don't think I've had to trim them more than once since she got top & bottom teeth in..
__ loves/seeks out "squishing" activities - I think she satisfies this craving by putting the dog's food into the dog's water dish, making the food squishy, then play in that...she also like to play in shredded wheat cereal once it's soggy..
__ enjoys bear hugs - if you give her a hug and it's not tight enough she'll hug you tighter, hoping you'd do the same to her, OR she'll pull your arms tighter around herself
__ excessive banging on/with toys and objects
__ loves "roughhousing" and tackling/wrestling games - hence one of the reasons I can only scrub my kitchen floors if she's sleeping or isn't home, she has tackled me to the ground, with a shoulder to my throat, and its with MUCH more force than you'd expect from a 30 pound 2 year old, it HURTS to go over on a concrete floor.
__ frequently falls on floor intentionally - about the 2nd time she went down HARD on the, again, concrete floor or landing on a toy she'll look to be sure there is nothing in her way of going to the floor, then will throw herself with only enough force to be on the floor, not actually hit the floor....
__ would jump on a trampoline for hours on end - she can jump on my bed for hours and hours and hours upon endless hours if she's allowed...otherwise she jumps across the floor here in the living room, jumps from the couch to the couch cushions that are on the floor...always constant motion.
__ loves pushing/pulling/dragging objects - this one I'm a bit hesitant to mark really. She does love pushing around her play stroller, especially if the cats are agreeable to it, she mainly though pushes around her smaller furniture, tote boxes, and stools in an effort to be able to reach something that she wants.
__ loves jumping off furniture or from high places - I swear I have mini heart attacks 50 times a day...FORTUNATELY though she has only really attempted the unsafe jumping when Brian or myself have been there to "catch" her.
__ chews on pens, straws, shirt sleeves etc. - not really so much these items, but similar items, small hard plastic items mainly, like they're gum....I have given her gum and you'd think she just won the lottery or something. One small 1/4 piece of gum can keep her attention for the better part of at least an hour, she doesn't really start "playing" with it, such as with her fingers until she starts to get a bit bored with chewing on it, which takes a while...at least in standards of a 2 year old.
So her occupational therapist sent me a few copies of pages from a book - the book being The Out of Sync Child - the sections she gave me were mainly covering a "sensory" diet. Basically a lot of ideas of activities and stimuli to help her meet her cravings, and both of us keep our sanity.
If I have time later I'll put on here our sleep struggles and progress recently made in that area. :)
Just to put a new 'update' on this particular post:
ReplyDeleteMikaila does NOT NOT NOT NOT have SPD. She has been dealing with abnormally large tonsils and adenoids all her life. The lack of sleep she has gotten from this, all of her life, as attributed to MANY sleep issues, speech issues, and behavioral issues. Many of the 'motion' things were actually her infantile way of relieving the fluid pressure that has been on her eardrums since birth.
In July of 2010 she had surgery to remove her adenoids & have tubes put in her ears. Yes, she's 3, but she's a 'more normal' 3 year old. We're still working on the speech issues as she basically missed out on crucial language forming years because she could not hear properly - everything sounded to her like she was under water, hence the reason her speech is muddy, but she's been making great progress over the last 8 months since the surgery. She will likely be going in to have her tonsils removed this coming summer.
My baby's life was hell, as was mine, because an incompetent doctor and group of therapists refused to do anything more than label her as some 'whatever acronym' to increase their funding or just not have to deal with actually treating her. I mean, seriously, what do you expect from a doctor's office when the head nurse practitioner tells you not to worry about your infant daughter's rectal bleeding simply based on the fact that her skin is a nice tone and her hair is shiny.