Strategies for Alexander

This morning Heather and Arice, an occupational therapist, came to our rescue!  Since all of this has been going on with Alexander, I have been wanting to know what we can do NOW to help him with his sensory stuff.  It is quite clear to pretty much anyone who spends at least 5 minutes with Alexander that he has an incredible amount of energy.  Once you look a little further, it is pretty clear that he has some type of sensory seeking disorder.  Meaning, he is constantly looking for physical input because "normal" 2 year old activity isn't enough to satisfy his need for getting his energy out.  Arice was able to give us a lot of activities to do and ways to compress and move his body to give him the input he is seeking.  One of our newest best friends is the exercise ball (or some may know it as the cheezy ball!  ...yay Joel!)  We can roll him, bounce him, press it on his body when he is laying down and tons of other fun things.  Another thing we can do is spin him in an office chair.  By making him dizzy, in a safe way of course, it will kind of disrupt his need for crashing and banging because being dizzy is a different sensation.  Also, jumping provides a lot of input.  It not only engages the muscles, but you visually move, and compress your joints all at the same time .  We will be getting him an indoor trampoline with a handlebar.  Right now we use the beds, but that makes me a little nervous.  I knocked my two front teeth out while jumping on a bed when I was super little and had to have fake ones until I was like 10!  One last thing Arice told us to do was to stroke his arms, legs and back with a lot of pressure.  Do each limb and his back about 10 times.  Joint compressions are also good.  That is where you put your hands on his shoulders when he is standing and press down quickly 10 times, or do individual joints.  With all of these activities you start off fast and then slow it down at the end.

So what does all of this do for him?  Well, let me give you the whole picture.  When Heather and Arice arrived Alexander got really wild.  He was crashing, running from room to room, talking "baby talk" and just being all around crazy.  Arice showed me how to do a lot of those activities listed above for about 25 minutes.  After she demonstrated that stuff on Alexander, he went into his bedroom and we continued to talk.  Alexander came out a minute later with a fish game (picture right) that he hasn't played with since he got it, sat on the floor and calmly and nicely played for about 20 minutes!  He probably would have continued to play, but Arice had to leave and it drew his attention away from the game. 

So, all of those activities give his body the input it needs, gets his energy out and allows him to focus on a certain activity.  Not that I was skeptical that it would work, I just can't believe it worked so well!  I mean, 30 minutes before I had a crazy toddler crashing into me, and now my little boy was sitting nicely and playing with a toy in a calm way.  He NEVER plays in a calm way!  FYI, Heather says that she uses a lot of those techniques on her kids who don't have any sensory disorders to get them to focus and calm down if they are wild and crazy.  So, let me know if you have any questions for your own family! 

Our next appointment is on Thursday with Heather and Tracy.  She is coming back to do a little more observation with Alexander and go over some paperwork.  Right after that he has speech with Danielle.  I'll let you know when the blog is updated.

Love to all...