Sensory avoidant question and eye update

[waverly]

DS is sensory avoidant.  He is mild ish, so doesn't have a SPD diagnosis.   I was just wondering on suggestions for things that are a bit overwhelming for him sensory speaking (or maybe they are just normal age appropriate things/ personality).  He is 7.

Movies- anything perceived of as scary -even if it really isn't, difficult or emotional situations even if they are not bad situations.  He gets over excited.  Refuses to watch them. Bounces up and down on the couch, runs in and out of the room.  Getting slightly better with this though. 

Bathing- hard to get him in the bathtub, but he likes it when he is in it.  He won't shower though.  

Fears- he has a lot of fears, but I think the main one right now is fear of the dark which is normal for this age, I think.  He has way too many lights on in his room, and I am trying to work with him on dropping some of them because he can see really well in there- nothing is dark in there. 

Hygiene- Will do but with lots of prompting.  Needs to be reminded to brush teeth (probably normal), I did get wipes and had a bit conversation with him on wiping since he made a big mess a couple of days, and its been better.  I think this kind of ties into the bathing. 

ETA- Won't eat cold things, so I tried buying him Sensodyne toothpaste.  

I think we are doing OK/ working on it and making progress.  I just thought I would throw it out there for suggestions.

Update: His eye exercises are coming along really well with OT, so I may not have to take him to Vision Therapy after all!

[waverly]

Apr 19, 2018 13:18:35 GMT -5 @kar said:

Do you think he may have a component of anxiety? My kid does many of the same things, but his appears to be from anxiety. It’s hard to parse out the whys!

I think the movies and fear of the dark could be.  He doesn't seem to have anxiety around hygiene though.  It just seems like he doesn't want to/ isn't interested.  

ETA- he also feels the emotions of a movie intensely which I understand because I do too and did more as a kid as well.  And I was scared of the dark as a kid also.  So he seemed to have inherited my personality.  I have slight anxiety but not clinical- not on medication, doesn't affect my life too much.  

[akafred]

The only thing I hear that is sensory is the showering, tooth brushing, and avoiding cold foods. It doesn't sound like his teeth hurt; it sounds like he just prefers warm. Which I would practice with ice cream .

For the other stuff, I would just make it a challenge and slowly introduce the change, matter-of-factly. You can keep the lamp on, for now, but let's put it in the closet and close the door halfway. And slowly close it more each day. He may need a carrot. We call things like this "challenges" and theoretically there could be a challenge prize (when she was doing swim lessons I counted the times she did what the instructor asked the first time and gave her that many M&Ms when we got home), but in reality she normally does it without the prize just because she rises to the challenge and feels good about it. Basically with anything like this, if the child's anxiety is at a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, that's good. 1 or 2 means they aren't being challenged (maybe being coddled; anxiety can grow). 6 or above means they are going to be too scared to learn anything (this would be "my dad threw me in the lake to teach me to swim and I almost drowned" territory). So make the challenge small and gradual, let him feel his confidence grow, and pick 1-2 things to work on at a time.

[funchicken]

Bathing is kind of non-negotiable. Does it help if he gets to pick the time or if he gets a reward afterward like an extra book or a quick game?

We bought a light-up showerhead from amazon, and my kids ALL love taking showers now. It's really cool. My 2 younger ones shower with the lights off for a disco shower experience.

My DD has SPD, and she's very particular about food temps. If food isn't the temperature it's supposed to be, she won't eat it. Is the food thing getting in the way of his enjoyment or participation in activities? I would probably just let this one slide for now if it wasn't causing major disruptions.

[waverly]

He won't eat ice cream or popsicles, and the food is really the least of my worries. I was just putting it in there as other sensory type things and if other people had experienced it. I did get him to try adult toothpaste and practice spitting it out, so I guess it helped him grow a little bit.  

Bathing is non-negotiable, but I would like him to be more cooperative and do it more frequently. Since its a bit of a fight, I don't push often enough and DH does not help. I have talked to DH about it, and he says he is modeling good hygiene with his actions which is true, but his words are sometimes the opposite (more when they were younger- it is better now). But things like why do a bath now, or kids should get dirty- they should but they should also get clean again. And DH never helps them bathe ever. The light up shower head is a good idea.

Thanks for the anxiety scale, akafred .  I think he is probably a 3, and could be pushed gently to a 4. DH wants him to sleep away summer camp (I pushed it off a year) and I know he will eventually outgrow his fear of the dark, but I think he needs to be over it for camp in a year. I have lots of time. I did some googling and came up with some good ideas. I got rid of one light, but the other two are on, and one is the closet light. I was trying to drop that one, so closing the door little by little is a good idea. Some of the other things I read were making the dark fun not scary like buying glow in the dark stars, or glow in the dark party stuff. Also he is frightened in hotel rooms and camping, so working on that will help with family vacations and cub scouts.

[funchicken]

Could you try a practice campout in the house? Like set up a small tent or fort in the living room or something, and make some glow stick lanterns for him to brighten up the tent. For Girl Scouts we have a progression that we're supposed to follow to get the girls ready for overnight trips, and a "camp-in" is one of their suggestions.

[waverly]

Apr 20, 2018 14:30:58 GMT -5 funchicken said:

Could you try a practice campout in the house? Like set up a small tent or fort in the living room or something, and make some glow stick lanterns for him to brighten up the tent. For Girl Scouts we have a progression that we're supposed to follow to get the girls ready for overnight trips, and a "camp-in" is one of their suggestions.

Good idea!  I was thinking the back yard but could never go through with it because I didn't want to lose out on sleep, but this way he can sleep by himself in the living room as another way to get used to sleeping somewhere else with different shadows etc.  

I did have him sleep with me in a dark room and he did OK the second time.  It worked for DD, but she does things much quicker than him.  And me being there makes him less scared, so I am not sure if it is helping or not.  I think maybe...

[akafred]

One of my coworkers' son wasn't sleeping for fears of the unseen things in the night, but also couldn't sleep with the lights on. She got him a flashlight so he can shine it and see there are no monsters and go back to sleep. The rule was if he played with it, it got taken away, and it worked a treat for him. Another option would be one of those glow worm toys you can squeeze to light up at night if he wakes up, vs having the lights on all night. DD still uses a turtle that projects stars on the ceiling, and the light goes out after 45 minutes. So that's a possibility too.

[waverly]

More eye saga. Working on convergence this week. I finally got the right eye to converge. The left eye went to the left. I partially think he was doing it on purpose not to be a pain but because it was easier for his eyes to do that.

He finally admitted to me that his left eye likes to go to the left which had me googling and coming to strabismus and / or lazy eye. He also finally mentioned having double vision sometimes...

I already have a optician appointment set for early June, so I think i’ll add ophthalmologist to it as well.

I wish all of this stuff was clear at the beginning or maybe a pediatrician would mention it. It was just an optician who gave me no instructions on how to proceed and PT which led to OT and actual eye exercises which even led to me asking the right questions.

I always though balance issues were from his hearing / middle ear issues which it could have been but could also be from the eyes because if they aren’t focusing right how can he balance?

Definitely been a journey with this guy.

[funchicken]

I'm sorry it's so hard to find answers, waverly. I would definitely see an ophthalmologist. My sister was born with a congenital cataract that wasn't diagnosed right away, and having poor vision in one eye affected her depth perception and coordination. She's fine now, but she always had trouble with sports when she was younger.

[freezorburn]

Sometimes it takes time and some random catalyst that I wouldn't have thought of.

Until recently, DS was so hugely resistant to bathing that I was resigned to 1x a week, which was fine because I get the sense from his dad that he is more compliant with his dad on this issue. IDKY.

Couple months ago I signed DS up for what they call adaptive high-functioning swim lessons at the Y. Again, very resistant (he hated swim classes as a baby), but broke the first lesson down into small steps and eventually convinced him to go, check out the pool, meet the instructor, and dip a toe in. He has progressed from there, and part of that was convincing him that he needed to rinse the pool water off of his body after swimming. I set aside an afternoon when I told him we would practice rinsing off. He didn't want to do it, so I told him he could stand in the hallway and just watch me. He didn't even have to get wet. I put on my bathing suit, and so he decided to put on his swim trunks. I adjusted the spray to its lowest setting, and I showed him how I used the wall for balance and just put my foot under the spray. He decided to try it. Next thing I know, he has decided to stand under the spray up to his shoulders! So now he has decided he loves showers ...

... a little too much. A couple days later I needed to take action because he was taking 20-30 minute showers. I found a sand-dial shower timer that runs for 5 minutes. Which he loves, and when it runs out he tells me he is done with his shower. Lots of praise and positive reinforcement. He doesn't use soap or shampoo most of the time, but just taking a 5 minute rinse is a huge improvement over hardly bathing at all!

[akafred]

waverly, I had strabismus and amblyopia as a child. Ophthalmologists said I needed surgery, and wanted to wait until puberty. The only "eye exercise" they tried was patching. We moved shortly before puberty and I saw a developmental optometrist who did VT, which was pretty new at the time. It (almost) completely solved my problems with vision. It will still turn out if I am super tired and not "on it", but it's more of a parlor trick now. I am skeptical of the claims that VT cures dyslexia or autism etc, but I do believe in the case of documented strabismus that it can really help. Not what the OT does, but targeted VT.

[waverly]

May 2, 2018 6:50:40 GMT -5 akafred said:

waverly , I had strabismus and amblyopia as a child. Ophthalmologists said I needed surgery, and wanted to wait until puberty. The only "eye exercise" they tried was patching. We moved shortly before puberty and I saw a developmental optometrist who did VT, which was pretty new at the time. It (almost) completely solved my problems with vision. It will still turn out if I am super tired and not "on it", but it's more of a parlor trick now. I am skeptical of the claims that VT cures dyslexia or autism etc, but I do believe in the case of documented strabismus that it can really help. Not what the OT does, but targeted VT.

I know we had talked about this a little bit before.  The OT exercises have helped a lot, but the convergence insufficiency is a bit stubborn or needs more help.  And the strabismus is just a theory of mine at the moment based on 2 things.  1. He says his left eye likes to go to the left when trying to converge.  2. He admitted to double vision.

I think I might need the opthamologist to diagnose and then head to Vision Therapy for treatment.  In the other thread, I had decided to do the OT exercises first then the next steps.  So I think we are at the next steps part now.

I have the optician appointment set, and still need to schedule the opthamologist.  Then I think I will hold off on therapies for the summer, and start looking into vision therapy for the fall.  I haven't looked at insurance yet, but I am 95% certain it would not be covered, so I have to come up with a payment plan for it as well.  Just writing out my steps because it helps cement them better in my mind.

ETA- I just scheduled the opthamologist and the earliest they had is mid July.  They want the OT and optician reports, so I guess it is good to have it scheduled later and works with the timeline of vision therapy in the fall.  I am really leaning towards it- not that I want to pay more money or do more therapies, so hopefully the optician and opthamologist are not totally against it.  

[akafred]

What is an optician in this? I think of opticians as the one who fit glasses to your face, not really like doctors. Optometrists can Rx glasses, or ophthalmologists who are medical doctors.

[waverly]

May 2, 2018 13:46:59 GMT -5 akafred said:

What is an optician in this? I think of opticians as the one who fit glasses to your face, not really like doctors. Optometrists can Rx glasses, or ophthalmologists who are medical doctors.

I meant optometrist. Too many O words referring to people that work with eyes! 😀

[waverly]

One more update- We saw the optometrist. He checked the double vision and didn't see anything. He seemed to think it was maybe because DS has a slight prescription now of -.5. He said the tracking looked good, and said that he thought to just keep practicing the convergence. So he didn't seem to think we needed to see the pediatric opthamologist. So probably will cancel that appointment, but not sure as of yet. I think he is thinking that when the eye goes in and out when converging that it is just part of the converging exercises/ strengthening.

Also interesting that they referred to the OT exercises or any exercises as Vision Therapy. Whereas, I thought he had to go to a Vision Therapy center for it to be called Vision Therapy, so I didn't know I was doing vision therapy all along. I think some people call them pencil push ups or something like that and there is some disdain for them instead of doing more of the other options, but it worked for him, so I am not complaining.

He probably has another 3-4 weeks on the convergence exercises and then I think he would good because I do see him make progress.