Autism Awareness Day 26: Occupational Therapy

Connor has been working with Kristin, our occupational therapist. She deals with a lot of his sensory issues and also helps with the proprioceptive and vestibular needs. Initially, she gave us lot of sensory ideas, like squeezy pillow hugs, swinging around wrapped in a blanket, rolling up like a burrito and the trampoline.

Because Connor was removing his clothing on a regular basis, she included joint compression and deep pressure. With joint compression, we literally push his joints together in different spots on the wrist, elbow, shoulder, knees, hips and ankles 10 times each. Following that, we do deep pressure along the sides of his legs, the bottom of his feet, on his forearms, his back and shoulder blades and on his hands.

For awhile, this was working for a majority of the time. However, because we are teachers, (and I am NOT rubbing this in) we have more frequent vacations. My school district gives 2 weeks off each quarter, so the boys are home for 2 weeks with us. The transition between being home all day in a different setting and routine and then going back after 2 weeks to daycare from home wreaks havoc on our little guy.

We finally ended up brushing Connor's skin daily with a small surgical brush. This brush worked miracle of miracles because he has been keeping his clothes on and he doesn't scream when we do try to dress him. Plus, he loves the extra input. Kristin teaches us how to administer these techniques and then we include throughout the day.

Kristin also works on language while he plays. She has him play on the swingset and teaches us how to incorporate words while he is receiving sensory input. She also taught us how to watch for his sitting posture-Connor likes to lay on his side to play and some kids with autism have this posture or others that don't work the upper body muscles which can be underdeveloped. They also like to sit in odd positions, like the "W", where they are sitting on their bottom with their legs positioned out and away (very uncomfortable!). She also helps us understand when just rolling that little car back and forth is probably okay.

The best thing about OT is that Ian and Connor can participate together and Kristin allows Ian to join the sessions. Sometimes we ALL join the session to dance, do parachute or roll balls back and forth.