Need info on sensory intergration

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Hi Guys

My 5 year old son was diagnosed with Sensory intergration. While I have done a lot of research online I still don't really understand it. I want to know if there is anyone on here that knows about or has a child with it. What is the best type of school enviroment for a child with this. My son has behavioral problems and I think public school with there being so many children may not be the best option. Although he can't sit still for a long while he is very very smart. He knows all the basic things a kindgarten child should so I am not sure if special education would help him or not. He's gonna require an intensive therapy according to his OT. Plus i start the RN program this year, so my life should be really interesting. Thanks for you help in advance. I am also considering private school, here in florida they have a scholarship that helps disabled children.

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Butterfly3001 - My heart goes out to you.

I highly recommend The Out of Sync book to you. It thoroughly explains the diagnosis and different activities you can do with your child to help them integrate sensory input.

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Sync-Child-Recognizing-Integration/dp/0399523863

The OT may be able to recommend a school or go out to a prospective school. The OT can give you and the teacher ideas to help him tolerate a classroom setting.

Hoping the best for you and your son.

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Butterfly3001 - My heart goes out to you.

I highly recommend The Out of Sync book to you. It thoroughly explains the diagnosis and different activities you can do with your child to help them integrate sensory input.

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Sync-Child-Recognizing-Integration/dp/0399523863

The OT may be able to recommend a school or go out to a prospective school. The OT can give you and the teacher ideas to help him tolerate a classroom setting.

Hoping the best for you and your son.

Thanks, alot I've seen this book all over the net. If anyone else has some adivice I would appreciate it as well.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

As someone else has said, the is the book The Out of Sync Child and The Out of Sync Child has Fun your school district should also evaluate him and come up with an IEP, (Individualized Education Plan) if your child needs special ed or educational assistance your school district needs to provide that

My son has some sensory integration problems as well as ASD. He is in a main stream school, but he has some special aides. He has great gross motor skills, but the fine motor skills are a problem. Last year in 1st grade he was reading at a 3 grade level, but could not write his own name. So while in a main stream class room, the special ed teacher would pull him out to work one on one with him, later on in the year she would come join him in the class room as his writing improved.

He is a sensory seeking child, therefore for him to be able to concentrate he needs sensory input. He gets this by wearing a weighted blanket over his legs, when sitting at the table. During circle time, he hold onto those rubber balls kind of like stress balls. The aides at recess encourage him to get on the swings, because that is what provides the most input for him. His kindergarten year I had him jump on a trampoline for 15 minutes before the bus came, so he would be calmer on the bus.

He is 7 now and he is starting to relize when he needs a break and he will ask his teacher for the stress balls or some of the other tools that are used.

We have recently discovered that he has sensitive hearing and when in crowed places, or where the noise is loud he can not handle it well. When he was in the gym for PE class and it would echo, he would either roll on the floor or start doing "stemming" (self stimulation), and withdraw into his own world. I used to think he had hearing loss because he had, had many ear infections with scar tissue in his ears, but within the last six months, I have been having him wear ear plugs, at places where I know it will be noisy and his behavior has improved.

I wish you well, as kindergarten was a hard year for my son to make adjustments and for us to figure out what he needed in the classroom

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Specializes in ER.

Hi, Sorry if this gets posted twice - I just hit submit and lost it! Anyway, my 8 year old daughter has sensory integration dysfunction. When she was about 2, things started falling apart for her. With OT and lots of learning and patience on our part, she is doing terrific. I second the suggestion for The Out of Sync Child. If you are struggling with melt downs etc. The Explosive Child by Ross Greene is an excellent resource. It can be sort of a scary/lonely place to be when someone tells you this about your child - I found it really helpful to network with others that were in this situation. We had to learn how to advocate for her in school but more important, we had to learn to trust and have faith in ourselves as parents that we could give this little girl what she needed. I want to emphasize that she is doing great both emotionally and physically so know that with some good OT and LOTS of patience, you can give your son the tools he needs to be able to be succeed in his environment. Feel free to PM me if you have specific questions or anything!

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Hi, Sorry if this gets posted twice - I just hit submit and lost it! Anyway, my 8 year old daughter has sensory integration dysfunction. When she was about 2, things started falling apart for her. With OT and lots of learning and patience on our part, she is doing terrific. I second the suggestion for The Out of Sync Child. If you are struggling with melt downs etc. The Explosive Child by Ross Greene is an excellent resource. It can be sort of a scary/lonely place to be when someone tells you this about your child - I found it really helpful to network with others that were in this situation. We had to learn how to advocate for her in school but more important, we had to learn to trust and have faith in ourselves as parents that we could give this little girl what she needed. I want to emphasize that she is doing great both emotionally and physically so know that with some good OT and LOTS of patience, you can give your son the tools he needs to be able to be succeed in his environment. Feel free to PM me if you have specific questions or anything!

Thanks a lot of all of you! I feels good not to be alone in this world. I think my son is sensory seeking too. He already has had an IEP in the past because he has been diagnosed with both speech and developmental delay. His OT is giving me her results tomorrow morning and I will find out what she suggest as far as school goes and what exactly sensory issue he has, so far I only know about him needing "intensive therapy. He seems to hate crowded places such as restaurants and things. How do you all deal with that?

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Specializes in Pediatrics.
He seems to hate crowded places such as restaurants and things. How do you all deal with that?

The only thing that I could suggest because I am just discovering this with my son is that the noise might be to much for him. I have child size ear plugs that I carry with me and my son is now after a few months accepting of them and will wear them and it has seemed to help. As your son gets older then he may be able to verbalize what it is that is bothering him.

I would like to be able to give you some hope, because as my son has gotten older things have gotten easier, from 2.5yrs-to about 6 years it was hard, and even now we have recently discovered that ear plugs work to help with to much noise stimulation

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

Oh, I wanted to add that the summer break from kindergarten and 1st grade my son had intensive therapy, twice a week with OT and SP, for 2 hours at a time, over that summer he made vast improvements. So intensive therapy can be good and can be temporary, he currently isn't receiving any therapy and we meet with his neurologist in November.

With school, no matter what you choose, make sure that they are communicating with you. That is the problem that we ran into during kindergarten for my son. His teacher would never communicate to me if there were any problems even though I gave her all contact phone numbers and email addresses, eventually we had the teacher keep a notebook and I wanted daily updates to look for patterns in behavior, it is more work for th teacher, but when you see patterns develop you can see what works and what doesn't.

You are your child's advocate through the school district, and at times they may not want to do what might be best for your child but what is easier for them.

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My daughter (9 years old) has Sensory Integration Disorder. She is MUCH better than she was even a year ago. I noticed problems with her when she was an infant - she was super sensitive to sounds and was a late walker and late talker. In fact, I thought she might be deaf because she did not talk for so long. Anyway, I was told given all sorts of reasons for her problems - when she started school I began to notice other things - she was not a behavior problem but would respond in a "weird" way to some things- which often causes teachers to become very impatient with her "antics" as they described them. For example, the piano would send her into crying fits and because she had speech issues she could not verbalize how much the piano annoyed her. My daughter also is very bothered by food noises - chewing, chomping on ice, etc.

I decided that, in the long run, it would be better for her to adapt to the world around her rather than having the world adapt to her idiosyncracies. Beginning the summer after kindergarten we began intensive occupational, speech and physical therapy. Physical therapy was mainly for balance - riding a bike, etc. and OT was for tying shoes (which she still can't do, but no problem since I discovered Yankz brand shoelaces that runners wear) and handwriting (our OT used Handwriting without tears program but I have also heard great things about "Loops and Groups".) Speech therapist was dealing with her pronunciation and articulation. She went to therapy EVERYDAY after school. We were there for 1.5 hours each time. She did have OT everyday and alternated the other therapies. The OT that we had was great and she "got it". She was also a great personality fit for my daughter and me. She followed through and more or less coordinated all of her services. She was relatively young - had just finished a masters program the spring before we started. Now, my daughter will be entering 4th grade this fall - first time in public school but since we moved I thought it was a good time to make a transition. I am very nervous. Before she went to a small private school with 10 children per class (30 per grade) - a very academically challenging school that was great for the quirky kids like my daughter.

Academically my daughter could keep up but she had private tutoring with Wilson Reading (+ Fundations) and TouchMath.

Don't give up - I have done loads and loads of research so please feel free to PM me if you have any questions. Have you gone to the Wright's law website? It is a great resource if your child is in public school and they often do workshops around the country - I have attended 2 of their conferences and it was very informative and helpful.

Oh, and now my daughter does not have PT or ST anymore, but will still have OT for handwriting and keyboarding skills. I can't tell you what a difference it has made for us that she has learned to function in her environment and maintained her academic skills. It has been VERY expensive but well worth every penny - and luckily when she was having the intensive therapies we lived in SC and they have an excellent system for covering extraordinary health expenses for children.

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Also wanted to add that depending on the day you may have to just NOT go to restaurants or crowded places. The way I like to explain this disorder to some people who don't understand is that it is like my daughter carries around a bucket. Each time she has one of those offensive sensory inputs she puts it in the bucket (whether it is noise, crowds, texture, etc) what happens is that her bucket gets full and the only way it can be emptied is for her to be in a place (usually home) that is familiar and soothing. Luckily, through OT she has developed more tools to "empty the bucket". But, boy do I remember the days of being in the check out line in Wal-Mart with my shopping cart full and having to just walk out because I could tell she was about to crack...

for sensory seeking try the weighted blankets and weighted lap toys - my daughter has a weighted stuffed animal to keep her in her seat and "grounded" for school. The blanket gives my daughter a FULL nights sleep.

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Oh my goodness, you have know idea how excited I am. Thank you all so much, I am truly learning alot and seeing a lot of my son your kids. I alway knew something wasn't right with my son, then all of a sudden it started to make sense when his OT asked if he had ever been screened for sensory issues. Thank you all alot I really appreicate it. I will definitely look into getting him a weighted blanket or someting, this may sound silly but does insurance usually cover things like that? If not thats fine I am more than willing to pay for it myself.

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