We have started homeschooling!!! Corby turned five on May 31st, and he would normally be entering Kindergarten in September. But we felt more comfortable with homeschooling, so that's what we're doing. We ordered a Kindergarten package from My Father's World, and it has been amazing! I love the curriculum, but I have had to skip parts of it for being to easy for him. The curriculum goes from teaching your kids the alphabet to reading, and since he's almost reading, most of it doesn't apply to him. It has tons of fun aspects that Corby can't wait for, such as an ant farm and butterfly garden.
Unfortunately I haven't been as consistent as I'd like. Health issues and busy Summer plans have interrupted us, but I expected that. That's why I started in May instead of September. Corby loves it, and is improving so much with his fine motor skills! He's cutting straight lines now, and actually trying to color in the lines. Before he wouldn't even try because it was too hard on him. And now he's using salt trays! A year ago he wouldn't have touched a salt tray, but now that's one of his favorite parts of the lesson. I just pray that he keeps improving, and that God gives me the strength to continue. If you're a homeschooling mom, especially a mom of a child with a sensory disorder, you know how hard this is!
Corby had his five year check up with his pediatrician a few weeks ago. This kid is in the 90th percentile for height and weight! Perfectly proportioned. The doctor says he doesn't see that too often. But give him another month, and that will change. He is advanced in his gross motor skills, and behind in his fine motor, but we expected that. The gap is closing though!
Friday, July 6, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
A Year Later
It has been a year since Corby was officially diagnosed with SPD. It's been an interesting ride to say the least.
This past year has brought a lot of changes in Corby. Most for the better, some, not so much. He went through occupational therapy like a pro, went through a summer feeding group, and started early intervention preschool in April.
While Corby was in therapy, I learned how to better parent a child like Corby. He has a crash zone and a trampoline he can go to when he gets too wild. He has a time limit for being crazy, as not to annoy the people who live underneath us, and he has parents who are much more patient with him. The therapist taught me how to explain things to Corby in SPD language. She taught Corby how to handle things when something isn't just how he needs it to be. It's hard to cover everything that we learned, because I did not keep this blog updated throughout the year.
Corby's main SPD issues are:
1. He's easily overwhelmed in crowded places
2. He has a hard time sitting still (even when watching a movie)
3. He has problems with fine motor skills (like coloring or buttoning)
4. Limited social awareness
5. Eating
I'm going to go over how we're coping with these problems, but first I'm going to share a story with you.
During the Christmas season of 2010, Corby had the biggest meltdown I've ever witnessed. It was the night of our annual Christmas program at our church, and he woke up to a very crowded, very noisy, nursery. It was so bad when he didn't get the comfort he needed, that he actually shut down, and did not care that another child was kicking him in the head while he was lying on the floor in the fetal position. He refused to speak, and did not acknowledge my presence at all. It was by far the scariest moment I've had as a parent. And that includes multiple ER visits and exposed bone. I didn't understand what was going on at the time, but now I know how I could have prevented it.
The Christmas program of 2011 was just as crowded, although we were in a bigger area. Because of the mistakes that were made last year, I decided to stay with him 100% of the time before the program so I could intervene if necessary. He was showing classic signs of skipping a meltdown and going straight for shut down mode. So I held him for awhile, but the more crowded it got, the more agitated he became. I was able to take him into a dark office where there was a window. We stood in that office by the window so we could see the hustle and bustle of the evening. Within two minutes his whole countenance changed. My husband and I were able to hold him away from the noise and the crowd until it was time for him to join his friends in the Christmas program. He did so well! I actually cried. It was so joyful for me to be able to watch him do something he couldn't do a year ago. We had found a way to work around his SPD!
Some of you might be thinking that there's nothing abnormal about what Corby was experiencing. But what you might not understand, is that it's not the issue of being crowded that he can't handle, it's the sensory input that comes with the crowd, along with the inability to cope with it. It's not just the crowd, but the noise and visual chaos that goes along with it. When we sit in church, sometimes he will cover his ears because the music is too loud. That's his way of coping with his hypersensitivity to noise. When we walk into the church, there are lots of people around, and 95% of them are taller than he is, so his way of coping is to not look at them. He focuses in on where he needs to go, and doesn't pay attention to anything else. When there's too much noise and visual stimulation, he goes crazy. His way of coping, is drowning it out. He will yell, scream, laugh, whatever he can to drown out the extra noise. He will also start bouncing off the walls to match what he perceives everyone else is doing. Unfortunately, that is not acceptable behavior, so when he can't do that, he shuts down. He will cry, and you can see the panic in his eyes. That's when I know that I only have about another minute before the shut down will begin.
Being able to recognize his panic signals is the only way we can manage his hypersensitivity to external stimuli. Sometimes making him focus on our eyes works, sometimes it doesn't. And when he has to leave the situation, we leave. We might miss out on parties and things like that, but that's just part of being an SPD parent.
When it comes to helping him sit still - there's really nothing we can do about that. He is a boy, and we know that SPD aside, it would still be hard to get him to sit still. Some things that help him are exercising just before he needs to relax, having a strict bedtime routine so he can relax to go to sleep, and allowing him some leeway to fidget. He also likes to watch TV upside down. :o)
Helping him with his fine motor skills is a challenge. He gets so frustrated because his brain can't tell his fingers what to do as quickly as he would like. He has learned to unzip, zip up when it's been started for him, unbutton something he's not wearing, and put his shoes on. He loves to trace letters, however he has a really hard time holding the pencil, and is easily dismayed. All we can do is keep the lessons short, encourage him the best we can, and set aside teaching opportunities that are not rushed.
The fourth problem we've been having is his social awareness. He has made amazing progress in this department since starting school. He's starting to understand personal space, but he still likes to get too close for comfort. He also lacks in conversation. He is where a two year old would probably be. Instead of holding a conversation, either with a child or an adult, he reverts to movie quotes. He doesn't quite know what to say, and he has literally a hundred movie quotes (maybe more!) in his head. He will also act out a scene with a child, and the other child doesn't understand what's going on, so Corby is left wondering what it was he did wrong. Thankfully he has an amazing special education preschool teacher that helps him with these problems.
Since I'm out of time, the eating solution will have to wait for another post. That is our most difficult problem, and it is the hardest to deal with.
This past year has brought a lot of changes in Corby. Most for the better, some, not so much. He went through occupational therapy like a pro, went through a summer feeding group, and started early intervention preschool in April.
While Corby was in therapy, I learned how to better parent a child like Corby. He has a crash zone and a trampoline he can go to when he gets too wild. He has a time limit for being crazy, as not to annoy the people who live underneath us, and he has parents who are much more patient with him. The therapist taught me how to explain things to Corby in SPD language. She taught Corby how to handle things when something isn't just how he needs it to be. It's hard to cover everything that we learned, because I did not keep this blog updated throughout the year.
Corby's main SPD issues are:
1. He's easily overwhelmed in crowded places
2. He has a hard time sitting still (even when watching a movie)
3. He has problems with fine motor skills (like coloring or buttoning)
4. Limited social awareness
5. Eating
I'm going to go over how we're coping with these problems, but first I'm going to share a story with you.
During the Christmas season of 2010, Corby had the biggest meltdown I've ever witnessed. It was the night of our annual Christmas program at our church, and he woke up to a very crowded, very noisy, nursery. It was so bad when he didn't get the comfort he needed, that he actually shut down, and did not care that another child was kicking him in the head while he was lying on the floor in the fetal position. He refused to speak, and did not acknowledge my presence at all. It was by far the scariest moment I've had as a parent. And that includes multiple ER visits and exposed bone. I didn't understand what was going on at the time, but now I know how I could have prevented it.
The Christmas program of 2011 was just as crowded, although we were in a bigger area. Because of the mistakes that were made last year, I decided to stay with him 100% of the time before the program so I could intervene if necessary. He was showing classic signs of skipping a meltdown and going straight for shut down mode. So I held him for awhile, but the more crowded it got, the more agitated he became. I was able to take him into a dark office where there was a window. We stood in that office by the window so we could see the hustle and bustle of the evening. Within two minutes his whole countenance changed. My husband and I were able to hold him away from the noise and the crowd until it was time for him to join his friends in the Christmas program. He did so well! I actually cried. It was so joyful for me to be able to watch him do something he couldn't do a year ago. We had found a way to work around his SPD!
Some of you might be thinking that there's nothing abnormal about what Corby was experiencing. But what you might not understand, is that it's not the issue of being crowded that he can't handle, it's the sensory input that comes with the crowd, along with the inability to cope with it. It's not just the crowd, but the noise and visual chaos that goes along with it. When we sit in church, sometimes he will cover his ears because the music is too loud. That's his way of coping with his hypersensitivity to noise. When we walk into the church, there are lots of people around, and 95% of them are taller than he is, so his way of coping is to not look at them. He focuses in on where he needs to go, and doesn't pay attention to anything else. When there's too much noise and visual stimulation, he goes crazy. His way of coping, is drowning it out. He will yell, scream, laugh, whatever he can to drown out the extra noise. He will also start bouncing off the walls to match what he perceives everyone else is doing. Unfortunately, that is not acceptable behavior, so when he can't do that, he shuts down. He will cry, and you can see the panic in his eyes. That's when I know that I only have about another minute before the shut down will begin.
Being able to recognize his panic signals is the only way we can manage his hypersensitivity to external stimuli. Sometimes making him focus on our eyes works, sometimes it doesn't. And when he has to leave the situation, we leave. We might miss out on parties and things like that, but that's just part of being an SPD parent.
When it comes to helping him sit still - there's really nothing we can do about that. He is a boy, and we know that SPD aside, it would still be hard to get him to sit still. Some things that help him are exercising just before he needs to relax, having a strict bedtime routine so he can relax to go to sleep, and allowing him some leeway to fidget. He also likes to watch TV upside down. :o)
Helping him with his fine motor skills is a challenge. He gets so frustrated because his brain can't tell his fingers what to do as quickly as he would like. He has learned to unzip, zip up when it's been started for him, unbutton something he's not wearing, and put his shoes on. He loves to trace letters, however he has a really hard time holding the pencil, and is easily dismayed. All we can do is keep the lessons short, encourage him the best we can, and set aside teaching opportunities that are not rushed.
The fourth problem we've been having is his social awareness. He has made amazing progress in this department since starting school. He's starting to understand personal space, but he still likes to get too close for comfort. He also lacks in conversation. He is where a two year old would probably be. Instead of holding a conversation, either with a child or an adult, he reverts to movie quotes. He doesn't quite know what to say, and he has literally a hundred movie quotes (maybe more!) in his head. He will also act out a scene with a child, and the other child doesn't understand what's going on, so Corby is left wondering what it was he did wrong. Thankfully he has an amazing special education preschool teacher that helps him with these problems.
Since I'm out of time, the eating solution will have to wait for another post. That is our most difficult problem, and it is the hardest to deal with.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Results
After an hour long evaluation, her findings were interesting, but of no surprise to me.
Corby scored high on gross motor skills. Things like running, jumping, climbing, throwing a ball, he excels in. He also scored high intellectually. Reading (he doesn't really read, but that's the category it's in), numbers, colors, etc, he's in the upper percentile, but she did not give me a number.
Visit With the Occupational Therapist
Sorry it took so long to write this. I've had some emails from people that have wanted to know how it went, and I just haven't had the time (nor desire since I've been sick) to sit here and write it. But here I am. :)
Thursday, February 3, 2011
My First Clue
As I said in an earlier post, I knew something was different when Corby was an infant, but I had no idea what it was. The first time mommy in me wanted to believe all of my well meaning friends and family when they said he would grow out of it, or that he was just quirky.
The Makings of SPD
So what exactly is SPD? If you would have asked me that question six months ago, I would have had no idea. I knew that some kids were more sensitive to noise and touch than others, but that is as far as my knowledge went. I knew Corby was picky about textures when he was a baby, and that it continued through his toddlerhood. I thought that was all there was to it, but I was wrong.
TheBeginning
As a new mom, I was filled with many uncertainties. I had never been the one responsible for making sure a newborn was taken care of around the clock. It was very difficult in the beginning. I had no idea that what I was about to be faced with, would be more than ordinary.
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