OT

Lucy started Occupational Therapy (OT) for sensory integration in August. Sensory Integration is a new and ever-growing developmental issue for kids. Like autism, no one knows for sure what is causing the rise, but health insurance covers it all. It seems that is the litmus test that it has entered the mainstream. Lucy is suspected to have these issues not because of neurological malfunctioning, but from sensory deprivation as a child. Perhaps without deep holding as a child and free reign to crawl and explore, she couldn’t move through the developmental milestones children do who are not institutionalized.

This whole field of is fascinating to me. New research comes out monthly that affects the way therapists are working with kids. Some things that Lucy did that caused us to take her in for testing were a constant need to bang, touching just about everything and general lack of impulse control.

To sum up – Lucy seeks sensory input like banging because she didn’t get deep touch as a baby and probably spent a lot of time alone in a bassinet and then crib. Deep touch like holding and swaddling develops a human’s proprioception and frontal lobe. The way a 3 and 4 year old can develop this sense is by banging things – their fork on the table, the stroller into the wall, the vase onto the floor. Once that sense gets developed then the frontal lobe’s job of impulse control can take over.

Most of Lucy’s challenging behavior is her way of backfilling the holes in her development. She is being her own therapist. But I am adding lots of appropriate and helpful input as well. We see her therapist once a week. I also do a skin-brushing three times per day and some exercises once per day to help with some reflexes that were never outgrown.

We are already seeing improvement and she likes the “therapy” – she tells me that it feels good. We call her therapist “the silly doctor who doesn’t give shots.”