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Zoolandia-The Sensory Eval Pt 2
I passed Zoolander’s Sensory Eval on to her school and to our private Occupational Therapist. Zoolander began seeing our OT once a week and our OT began working directly with the school district’s OT to implement some of the suggestions from the report.
Zoolander loves her time with our OT. They usually start the session with some kind of swinging activity, followed by work on cursive handwriting. Our OT noticed that Zoolander had a difficult time, even with cursive, because her letter formation is far from automatic. Sometimes cursive is supposed to be better for visual-spatial kids because it’s more fluid and artistic.
The beauty of visiting this OT is that she’s wonderful and really gets my twice exceptional kids, plus she’s close to our house, but… insurance won’t pay for her services. Insurance insists that we can drive 20 miles to the nearest OT who specializes in grannies with arthritis and who have no training in working with kids who have difficulty with Sensory Processing. So, there you go.
Luckily, our OT understands the expense and gives us lots of ideas to try at home, plus she tapers off her sessions once she feels the child is improving. The books, The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder and The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun have lots of great info and activities.
It’s also very helpful that our OT works quite often with the school district’s OT. That takes me out of the middle of things. They talk. The school’s OT observes and then makes adjustments and provides any sensory tools that they might need in the classroom.
Zoolander now has a special balancing chair, which she says helps her concentrate because she can move around more. She is also allowed to use a laptop for written work, which she says makes writing much easier.
I know the team at school takes care with Zoolander’s placement in the classroom, making sure distractions are minimized. They are also conscious of the fact that if Zoolander is fidgety, she may need a Sensory Break, which could just be running an errand to the office or erasing the white board.
Zoolander has shown improvement since these sensory accommodations were made, but I still felt that there was something else that was getting in the way of her learning. So, I put her on the waiting list for a Learning Evaluation.
Zoolandia-The Sensory Eval
Let’s take a little trip to Zoolandia and get an update on 2E Daughter #2. We’ve learned a lot about Zoolander’s learning issues since I last posted about her. Last fall, as she started 3rd grade, she had a Sensory Evaluation done at Children’s Hospital. Here’s the summary:
Zoolander has somatosensory challenges which presents as hyporesponsive exteroception. (So, that’s why she is never cold and doesn’t flinch at pain. We just thought she was brave.)
Zoolander also has challenges with proprioception, which is unconscious awareness of body position and movement: speed, force and direction of movement. (That’s why she likes to wear clothes that are too tight and small for her because it helps her body know it’s place in space.)
This is has caused delay in development of bilateral coordination, such as riding a bike, playing the piano and tying her shoes. (Yes, she learned to tie her shoes and ride a bike very late. And this is definitely a big part of her struggle with piano.)
This is currently impacting her functional performance and production of work—handwriting, piano and organization of her body to attend to the task at hand. Organization of these areas may help her filter extraneous sounds within her environment to attend to the task at hand. (This is why she sometimes has trouble paying attention at school and can be easily distracted, especially by sounds.)
AH HA! Many mysteries explained. What next?
Ingenious Minds
Have you seen this show on Science Channel? I love it.
http://science.discovery.com/tv/ingenious-minds
Each episode profiles a savant or genius whose mind works in a different way. They each have an extraordinary ability in areas such as art, music and mathematics, while also suffering from intellectual and developmental disabilities. Some have autism or Asperger’s. Talk about twice exceptional! The episode I watched last night was about Temple Grandin. They used a lot of clips from the HBO movie with Claire Danes.
I had a very emotional reaction to that movie, recognizing some of the same traits in Lily. Not that she is even on the autism spectrum, but I recognized Lily’s sensory sensitivities, her anxiety in new situations, her visual perception and memory. And, of course, I could definitely relate to her mother’s challenges.
Here’s a link to Temple Grandin’s talk on TED.com. Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds | Video on TED.com
Expanding Our Horizons
I signed Lily and myself up for a Saturday workshop at a local university. It was called Expanding Your Horizons, sponsored by the American Association of University Women. www.expandingyourhorizons.org
It’s intended to introduce middle-school girls to possible careers in mathematics, engineering and science. Lily would attend 3 short classes led by women… ‘Using Scientific Tools to Study the Solar System’, ‘Wildlife 101’ and ‘Transportation Engineering’.
I would attend 3 parent classes, the most intriguing called, ‘Paying for College’. The title was just so tempting… like, maybe Oprah would show up and give every parent in the audience a big wad of cash. What I really expected was bad news, which is definitely what I got, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the workshop really helpful.
The speaker was excellent… very efficient. She was an ‘educational consultant’ and got right to the point. There was none of that incredibly tedious workshop read aloud a handout b.s. that I can’t tolerate. This woman knew all the ins and outs of admissions and applying for financial aid and she packed as much information into the hour as she possibly could. It was terrifying, but really great information.
The other 2 workshops were also outstanding, both of them more on the behavior of middle-school girls. I actually felt like I learned something at the workshop and enjoyed myself too. Lily had a great time also, and was bubbly when I met her afterward.
Of course, the drop off wasn’t without a little drama. Most of the other parents just dropped their girls off and left, but Lily was close by my side, mumbling, “Just take me home. I don’t want to be here. Let’s just go. Let’s just go.” I tried to calm her, but it just agitated her. I finally used the daycare method and did the… ‘say goodbye and go’. Lily told me later that after I left she’d hung back so far from her group that they hadn’t seen her and left without her. A volunteer spotted Lily straggling and helped return her to her group. Argggh.
I know it’s good practice for Lily to have to deal with new situations and the anxiety that comes with them. I also feel like it’s important that she have frequent exposure to a college environment, all the better if it has to do with math & science. So, definitely, for both us—horizons expanded.
Brainhugger 