When a child with autism, Asperger’s or PDD-NOS is diagnosed it is often quite obvious to families to see why Speech Therapy is an important part of intervention. However it is not often clear how Occupational Therapy can be utilised to improve their child’s “Sensory Processing” which has a huge impact on their  social and communication development.

As you may or may not know “Sensory Processing is the organisation of sensation for use” (Ayres). What this means is that our brains are constantly taking in sensory information from our surroundings and trying to make sense of it. We then process this information to be able to behave and learn in an effective manner.

Many children with autism can be challenged in this area of development which makes the world a very confusing and sometimes crazy place to exist! Much of their energy is spent trying to interpret the sensations that they are receiving and they are often not able to focus on the things that we think are important. When this flow of sensations in the brain is disorganised, life can be like a rush hour traffic jam, so no wonder it becomes hard for children with autism to concentrate!!

Poor Sensory Processing is one of the major reasons why children with autism can have so much difficulty with ‘attention’ (among other things).

If your child has problems with Sensory Processing you may notice that your child…

1. Spends too much time attending to certain parts of toys/objects

2. Is drawn to certain games/activities that have a visual, auditory, touch or other sensory focus

3. Has difficulty focussing when in noisy or busy environments

4. Doesn’t play with toys in a conventional way but chooses to find a sensory way of playing with it

5. Becomes easily overexcited in activities

6. Switches very quickly from being calm to very agitated/upset

7. Has the need to constantly move

8. Changes quickly from one activity to the next etc, etc

In order for your child to be able to socialise, communicate and learn effectively from others it is vital that they are able to attend and focus in a calm, organised and alert state. If they are having trouble with this then they are going to find it very hard to learn effectively through ‘joint attention’ with other people, which is necessary for the development of social and communication skills.

Occupational therapists, that specialise in ASD, can certainly assist you with improving your child’s attention and focus by carrying out Sensory Integration Therapy. Please never underestimate the importance of ‘sensory integration’ work because getting your child into their optimum state is the foundations of all learning.

If you do not have access to an Occupational Therapist who specialises in sensory integration and/or you would like to learn more about this necessary area of development (as many professionals do not have time for training parents during their sessions) …please take a look at my training modules ‘Sense Part 1 and 2’.

I would also love to hear your stories of how improving your child’s sensory processing skills has had a greater impact on your child’s learning as well as social and communication development.

Please click here to share your comments

Till next time
Monique

P.S: If you liked this article you can subscribe to my blog for free (top right of this page) and every time I create a new article I’ll let you know via email so you’ll never miss a thing!

Howdy all,

This week’s tip as the subject says is a quickie, but a goodie

Have you ever noticed that after your child has been jumping on the trampoline, swimming, swinging, playing chasings or basically just moving around that they are a lot more talkative and chatty, or if your child is not talking yet that they are playing around with their vocalisations more?

Well there is a reason for this…

Movement stimulates the language areas of the brain. » Continue reading “A Quickie but a Goodie!”

Since you are reading this I’m guessing that the subject line may have grabbed your attention which is great because….

What I have to tell you today is very important. In fact it may change the way you think about just about every aspect of your child’s treatment.

———————————–

I often get asked to give families strategies to help deal with specific behaviours such as ‘toilet training’ or ‘picky eating’ or ‘poor sleeping patterns’.

It would certainly make my job MUCH easier if I could tell each one of you that ONE particular strategy would be the ‘Magic Formula‘ for solving each of these issues.

But the truth is…

because every child with autism (like any child) is so incredibly different and so unique, there simply isn’t a ‘magic formula’ or one strategy in particular to remedy these individual behaviours.

But there is a solution… so please read on. » Continue reading “Is there a ‘Magic Formula’ for Autism?”

Firstly, welcome to our new readers out there!

I thought I would share with you an email that I received from one of my clients. This topic is something that I am dealing with on a day to day basis in my work so I thought that it would be very relevant for many of you.

How many of you would love your child to be able to sit down and concentrate on a game, activity or piece of work for longer than minute or perhaps even a few seconds!???

Then Henry’s mum’s story will probably sound familiar to you…

“Thank you for putting together the Autism Essentials pack it has indeed helped us with our son Henry. We are going ok implementing the sensory diet but Henry is very physical and seeks movement activities all the time. So when we want to do something “low key” (eg: a puzzle) he really lacks interest and the balance between the two is hard to establish”

So what is a Sensory Diet and what can you do in these situations to help your child? » Continue reading “Help! My child finds it hard to concentrate”