Posts Tagged senses
Written on December 13, 2011 by Stuart Duncan 
Filed Under: Autism
This story begins back when he was just 3 months old and we were already having to buy him shirts for a 6 month old… born at a modest 7 pounds and 2 ounces, we had no idea that he’d grow so quickly.
At 3 years old, he was wearing clothes for a 5 year old… by 6, he was wearing clothes for an 8 year old.
Basically this meant that any clothes we bought him one summer would be donated by the next summer. In some cases, clothes we bought him at the beginning of summer were no longer fitting at the end of summer.
His shirts didn’t last very long but they usually survived to be handed down to his little brother or donated.
That brings us to our current problem…
Satisfying the senses
My son has taken to the habit of stretching his shirts such that the collar comes down across his shoulders, or he pulls his arms up into his shirts and stretches out against it.
Worse than that, he now chews on the collars and the ends of his sleeves as well.
The frustrating part of this is that just a year ago, we had a lycra bag that he could get into and stretch against as much as he wanted. This is an actual therapy tool for those that need that kind of stimulation.
Cameron had no interest in it.
Now we’re a year later and he’s running out of shirts.
We have an appointment to discuss this with his therapist but honestly, I am semi convinced I already know what needs to happen… we need to try what we tried before.
I don’t know if it will work, but if it does, it will certainly prove just how complicated Autism treatments can be. Not only does no one treatment work for every single person, or to varying degrees, but it also shows that what might not work at one time may work at another.
As children develop, as lives change, as situations are constantly in motion… the needs of the individual can change too.
It’s one of those very frustrating situations because not only is he going through shirts quicker than ever before but, as an Autism family, we have less money than ever to be replacing them.
We try to keep on top of him, to remind him to stop but honestly… have you ever tried to get someone to stop tapping their foot, pen, fingers, knee… those things that people do without even realizing it… how do you stop that?
It’s just that much worse when there’s an actual NEED to do it… such as sensory stimulation.
I guess we’ll just have to talk to his therapist and see what our options are.
Written on August 17, 2010 by Stuart Duncan
Filed Under: Autism
This is something I’ve seen discussed quite a bit lately, it’s a fairly common problem but in various degrees. Some people can not get their child to fall asleep, others do fall asleep but wake up constantly and then others sleep alright but wake up really early. Like all things Autism, the problems are never the same.
I can’t give you an answer that will definitely work for you because there simply isn’t one… all the problems are different, all the solutions are too. On top of that, as I always say, I’m no expert. I can only tell you what has been working for me and suggest you give it a try… but don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work for you.
Cameron has had a few nightmare nights here and there where he wakes up screaming… even night terrors. He’s also had a lot of nights where he just wakes up and calls for me, or comes to me, or just wanders out into the living room and sits there until he falls asleep on the couch. For a long time, he’d wake up at 5am no matter how tired he was or what time he went to bed.
We’ve pretty much run the gambit of various issues.
The more and more I wrote about how the senses of an Autistic works, the more I started to think about what his senses might be doing while asleep. You see, I believe that sleep does not stop the flood of sights, sounds, smells and even feelings from invading the person’s mind.
Are you watching a movie in the living room while they sleep? Are there cars going by outside? Does light come in from the window? Is there a clock ticking somewhere in the house? A faucet dripping? A pet awake somewhere, maybe eating? Are the sheets irritating the child? Is the bed hard enough? Soft enough?
I think that all of this is easily overlooked because a child that’s sleeping should not notice any of it… but for Autistics, maybe they do!
Going by that reasoning, my wife and I put black blankets up over the windows in his room, no light gets in at all… and then we put in either a white noise system, or the air conditioner (which sounds a lot the same).
So from bed time till morning, there’s no light and the sounds around are drowned out. Keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be loud white noise, just something else to focus on. The white noise is in the room with them, the other sounds are not.
We have not moved on to the sheets yet, mostly due to lack of $$…. but already we’ve seen a huge difference. Cameron now goes to bed on his own, he insists on a bed time story… and then he sleeps soundly until 7, sometimes 8am. The sunrise does not affect him, the sounds of cars and trucks going by does not affect him. He is free to sleep, oblivious to the world around him.
Strangely enough, getting the extra sleep was actually a bad thing, as he seemed to regress for a bit… but after a week or so, we saw a total reversal and found that the extra sleep was a huge benefit and well worth the effort.
I’m not saying that what will work for you will be so easy, but then again, maybe it is. Go into your child’s room and sit on the bed. Really stop and get a feel for the room. Listen for everything. Look at where light may be coming in or even moving. Is there an alarm clock? Imagine your child in there while fully awake and all the extra things they would pick up due to their sensory processing issues.
It’s worked for us so far!
Written on June 18, 2010 by Stuart Duncan
Filed Under: Autism
I think that something that is lost in the translation to people who do not deal with Autism, is that yes, Autistic people have less communication skills, less social skills, less ability to understand non-literal speech and on and on…. but that does not mean that there is less to the person. In fact, it could be argued that there is so much more!
What most people fail to realize is that a person with Autism does not miss details, they get it all. All the sights, sounds, smells.. everything. When you walk into a grocery store, your mind filters out the white noise… the buzzing, humming, mumbling, background music, stuff being moved around, people walking, doors opening and closing… on and on. An Autistic person can’t. And that’s just sound. Next you take the harsh lighting, things moving everywhere, glints of light off things, flashing lights, labels on everything, colours everywhere, people constantly doing something with something… there’s a lot to see. We say excuse me to the person in front of us and look for items on our list or that’s on sale. And Autistic person can’t do that.
And then there’s the smells… I’ll spare you the gory details on that one.
Now, on top of the sensory issues, you also have to take in the fact that the computers in their heads are working a mile a minute as they process every conversation, work out the math on all the numbers in the place, study the geometry of the fruit… all of this is happening faster than any science fiction computer you’ve ever seen.
What happens is, and is to be expected, a mental break down where even the best and brightest on the planet would agree that it’s simply too much to bare. We’ve all heard of that fun little torture technique where you poke someone in the forehead long enough it drives them crazy, or there’s a high pitched sound you can’t get out of your head? That’s one… one thing that happens for a matter of minutes… and it drives you crazy. Now imagine a thousand things… for an hour… for a day… forever??
If you are not touched by Autism, then it’s hard to understand… even harder still to understand why we parents and friends are so vocal and fight so hard for our loved ones… and why we hate you oh so ever much more than you hate us while you stare at us because our child screams in line at the cashier.
And if you are touched by Autism, your child, relative, friend… always try to remember that if it seems like they’re behaving irrationally, there’s likely a very good reason for it. Have more patience than you thought you could as you take a deep breath, slow things down a bit and have a look and listen around. You may find that they’re dealing with a lot more than you ever thought someone should have to.
It’s not their fault… it does not make them less… it makes them different.
This story begins back when he was just 3 months old and we were already having to buy him shirts for a 6 month old… born at a modest 7 pounds and 2 ounces, we had no idea that he’d grow so quickly.
