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,

Well I am now the proud mother of two beautiful children. Our little boy Liam was born on the 30th of March and he has certainly been a lovely addition to our family. Though I can hardly say ‘little’ as he weighed in at 4.45 kg, which is nearly 10 pounds! Eek…poor me

Anyway we are enjoying him immensely as there is nothing quite like a cuddle form a newborn baby.

In my last blog post we looked at some of the main things to think about and some key questions that you should ask any speech pathologist before employing their services to help your child with autism.

After you’ve been working with your therapist for a few months you’ll want to know if the therapy is actually making a difference and that you child is making some real progress. This depends greatly on how good a ‘match’ your therapist (and the therapy) is for your child.

So today (as promised) I’d like to share with you some of the warning signs that may indicate that it’s time to find another speech pathologist who is ‘a better match’ for your child.
» Continue reading “Signs That Your Speech Pathologist may not be a “Good Match” for Your Child”

Often toy libraries can be a very underutilised service in many communities… but they have a lot to offer, particularly for children with autism, aspergers or pdd-nos.

Many families say “We have so many toys at home…the last thing we need is more toys”

But let me give you a little bit of food for thought….

I saw a boy named Oli on the weekend for a session who will be going to a mainstream school next year.

He is doing really well with his play and interactions at home with his parents and his brother. This family have done an incredible job at building their relationship with Oli, helping him realise that they are heaps of fun to be around and can add so much value to his life. In fact, when I recently analysed some video footage of Oli playing with his family at home it really was not apparent that he had autism!

Yet aside from all of his wonderful progress at home his parents report that he is having significant trouble forming relationships with his peers. » Continue reading “Don’t forget about toy libraries!”

One thing that you need to understand is how important PLAY is for the thinking, language, emotional, problem solving and creative skills development of children with autism. So many people underestimate the importance of PLAY.

Ok. So how does play develop and what should your child be able to do in play?

Stage 1

From birth to 18 months of life, much of your child’s play will revolve around Sensory Play.

This means feeling different textures, learning about how their body feels when it is moved in different ways, listening to interesting noises like birds tweeting, the clock ticking and how different people’s voices sound different and can make interesting noises etc, etc. Their sensory play will continue to develop and become more complex during the first 18 months. » Continue reading “Part 1 – Why ‘Play’ is SO Important for Children with Autism”

One of the main autism symptoms or characteristics of children with autism is their language delays and slower speech development.

The ability of a child with autism to talk well is not just dependent upon having the motor skills to be able to shape sounds into words and words into sentences. But more importantly the child needs to have thoughts, ideas and feelings that they want to ‘share’ and communicate with others.

The reason that I want to talk to you about this today is because I had a session with a little girl named Sasha on the weekend. She is a delightful little girl who has many of the pre-verbal skills necessary to be able to talk and in fact she has already started to appropriately use some important words in her life e.g. more, go, biscuit… which is a wonderful start.

However it is very obvious that the area of development that is going to get in the way of Sasha’s language and speech development is going to be her ‘limited interests’ in her life. » Continue reading “If you want more language you need to expand your child’s world”

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.

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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?”

In my last post I spoke about improving your child’s social skills, and how preparing your child with autism for successful play interactions with other kids is a step by step process.

As mentioned, your child will need to become competent at playing and interacting with YOU (their primary caregiver) before they have the necessary skills to be able to do this successfully with their peers. This is mainly because ‘typically’ developing children are not very patient and will not wait around if your child does not have the skills to participate in the game or activity that they want to play.

Step 1

Therefore, step one is to make sure that you equip your child with these necessary skills by teaching them how to interact well with YOU first. You can get more help learning these skills with the ‘7 steps to Unlocking Your Child’s Social Skills‘ audio which I use regularly with all of my clients.

Step 2

Once your child has mastered the skills from step one you can move onto step two, and begin increasing the amount that you expose them to peer interactions.

Please remember that to begin with your child’s abilities with their peers will not be as advanced as they are with you. It is important that you learn how to support your child through their play with peers so that you give them every chance of success by ensuring that they have a positive experience.

Here are 5 key strategies I use with my clients on a daily basis to help them build successful interactions with peers… » Continue reading “The Key to Socialising with Peers – the next step”

Hi all,

Thanks to those of you that sent me through your questions and comments in response to my last message. It gives me more ideas of the knowledge that you would like me to share with you. As mentioned, unfortunately I won’t be able to answer them all immediately, but over time I will certainly try to answer everyone’s questions.. so stay tuned!

A number of you were interested in knowing more about how to help your child socialise with other children. I may have touched on this topic before, but since most of these issues can be quite complex and in-depth, it can be quite valuable to revisit them from another angle.

So in relation to the topic of Socialisation with Peers it is important that you understand a few key things.



1. Signs that your child is ready to begin Socialising with Peers

A child’s ability to socialise effectively with other children comes very naturally once the child is interacting well with his or her parents/caregivers first. When your child is playing with you they must be showing the following skills: » Continue reading ““My child wants to socialise with other kids but doesn’t know how””

People are often curious what is the ‘secret to my success’ when working with children with autism and I reply by saying… “I always work with the strengths and motivations of the children I treat.”

Working in this way is a ‘no brainer’ to me and it puzzles me why more professionals do not work in this way.

It doesn’t matter what your child is motivated by, you can always use this to build other areas of development. Let me give you an example… » Continue reading “What makes your child tick?”

Today I experienced something at a client’s preschool which certainly added an extra spring to my step for the rest of the day…

It gives me such a buzz when I attend goal setting meetings at preschools and schools and the teachers truly celebrate the positive contribution that the child, diagnosed with autism, makes to the classroom.

This got me thinking…

‘Why are particular schools and preschools SO much better than others, for kids with ASD?’

Here are some of my initial thoughts that became very evident from my meeting today. » Continue reading “Full Marks for Fabulous Teachers”