In Search of Myself

Great ADHD article

Click here to read article.

What an amazing example Michael Phelps is to the world, demonstrating what a kid with ADHD can accomplish with a smart and caring mother and a lot of hard work!  The 2nd page of this article is all about Phelps.

I have to say, I saw an interview on TV last night with Michael and his mother, and she's so smart and articulate (as a school principal SHOULD be, LOL!) and I just really enjoyed hearing about their lives.

Yes, Jake is mostly likely an ADHD kid.  We're still in the process of figuring out what it accompanies (in addition to Jake's sensory issues), because that doesn't encompass all his uniqueness.  So far gymnastics has been great for Jake as an outlet -- we're adding martial arts soon, and swimming might be next on the list.  He took 2 weeks lessons this summer and loved it -- is finally putting his head in the water!  Yay!

SPD update

Thought I'd do a quick update of Jake's sensory issues while I was thinking about it:

- Jake is obsessed with smelling things.  You know how babies will put a new object in their mouth to explore it?  Yeah, Jake does that with his nose.  Every time he gets a new toy he smells it, and makes ME smell it.
- He's finally eating ice cream, a little.  Only soft-serve.  I think he's had trouble with the cold combined with the texture (he won't eat pudding, either) so this is progress.
- He seems to be stemming a bit on a regular basis, and is excessively bouncy.  I don't know if this is because he isn't getting enough exercise, or that's just his latest tic.  (No longer twirling his hair and he usually doesn't grind his teeth, so I'll take what I can get.)
- has been having meltdowns again when he's faced with something new or something different from his expectations.  This comes in waves and he had been doing really well, then went crazy on Sunday at church.  Also had a melt-down at his preschool orientation when I left for work and he had to stay with my mom.  Good times.
- his grip on a pencil is getting SO much better, and he's really improving with intentional coloring.  It's still scribbly and not in the lines, but it's in focused spots and he's using more colors (rather than just scribbling one color on a whole page.)
- he's eating purple Fruit Loops sometimes instead of picking them out
- tried cherry-flavored juice at church and loved it.  Usually he refuses to try new flavors of drinks.
- still favors methodical play (lining things up, transferring water or sand from one container to another) but is doing good staying focused for board and card games.  He kicks my butt in Memory (because *I* can't stay focused!)

Trying something new

Since Jake's speech issues still aren't self-correcting and he doesn't qualify for speech therapy through our therapy practice OR through the school, my choices are (1) ignore it and just hope for the best, knowing that he will be at a huge disadvantage when he starts school, or (2) figure it out on my own.  And gee, I wonder which one I should go with.

I've been unsuccessful in finding books to help me or to give me specific exercises to do with him -- although I am learning all sorts of things about generalized childhood speech disorders.  So yay for me.  (That's sarcasm, people.  I am really not having good luck in the book department.)

My latest attempt is to read simple books to Jake and have him repeat each line that I read.  This actually works really well with Dora and Diego books, the ones designed for beginner readers.  He doesn't realize it's work (yet), and he has fun doing it.  I bought like 10 new books this weekend to work with.  I'm noticing that he leaves out or mumbles non-essential words, especially at the beginning of sentences -- like "we want to" or "can you" or whatever.  He jumps straight to the nouns and verbs.  He also leaves out a LOT of consonants, and it's not consistent.  The speech books say that children will typically leave off letters at the beginning of a word or at the end of words, or just have problems with specific things.  Jake's consonant problems are everywhere.  And he can say the individual words, it's just that clarity gets lost in the middle of a sentence.

He IS really good at mimicking my vocal inflections.  And for some reason he refuses to say "I" in the context of another character -- if Dora says "I am going on an adventure," Jake says "SHE is going on an adventure."  But the fact that he can rephrase what is happening is a good thing, in my mind.  And sometimes instead of repeating the sentence, he answers what it was asking or he asks another question, which is good -- because he needs to not only be able to SAY the words, but understand what is happening.

So yeah, that's where we are right now.

*edited to add a new thought*

When I was replying to Azul's comment, I remembered something funny.  *I* was put in speech therapy when I was in Kindy, because we had just moved from Texas to Montana and they thought I talked funny.  I was just fine, I just had an accent!  But my school had a lot of resources, so maybe the speech teacher was just bored?  LOL  Sucks that I didn't actually need help but got it for no reason, and Jake needs help but can't get it.  Don'tcha LOVE it?

ALSO

I put this in the SPD category, even though Jake's speech issues aren't because of his SPD -- however they ARE a part of the bigger therapy/learning/dealing with life process that so much of my SPD concerns are, so here they go.

A very messy project

Jake is tactile defensive, which for him means he doesn't want his hands to feel sticky or gooey or wet (unless it's water . . . then he's good all day.)  He loves the bright food coloring we have -- we usually put it in yogurt -- so I decided we would finger paint with Redi-Whip (I had some in the fridge for my sugar-free jello.) 

Jake has never wanted to finger paint.  He insists on brushes when I get the finger paint out.  But I made a rule that this kind of painting we could only do with our fingers, so he sucked it up.

First he helped me squeeze a few drops of food coloring over each little bowl full of Redi-Whip.  Then we used spoons to mix them up.

We drew his name first, which you can see in the first picture.  After that we just piled the stuff on our hands and made a mess.

This is probably a better outside activity than inside -- look what our floor looked like when we were done.  And after a while the Redi-Whip turns to the consistancy of milk, so that's messy too.  Oh, and the food coloring may not come out of clothes if it gets spashed -- so obviously this is an activity that takes a lot of supervision.  :)  But still lots of fun!!!

Sensory Update

I was just thinking about how great Jake did on our vacation this weekend.  We drove up Saturday -- and he played and read books in the car.  It took like 7 hours, and I didn't even bring the DVD player -- when he didn't feel like reading, he just looked out the window and watched the world.  Very cool.  The drive back on Monday was fine, too.

We stopped at McD's three times over the weekend to let Jake play on the playground and get a little exercise.  He used to be scared to death of playing with other kids, and would take like a half hour to get warmed up enough to actually play.  But each time this weekend he went straight for the playground, tolerated the children around him, and even talked to and made friends with some.  This is such a huge improvement and it really gives me hope that his social anxieties aren't hopeless.  (He DID get upset a few times and tell me that other children "hit" him, when really they just were going by him and bumped him.  I guess his bubble of personal space is still too big.  LOL.)

Jake also did really good playing with my cousin Kim's kids.  And when we visited my Uncle Steve, Jake played with my cousin Caleb (who is . . . 11?).  Last time we visited, Jake didn't want to play with him at all.  Jake ALSO sat at the table and played cars and legos with my uncle, and usually Jake does NOT warm up easily to men.  Although Uncle Steve is just 11 months younger than my mom, and there's a definite resemblance -- so maybe Jake sensed that and felt comfortable because of that.

There WERE some things over the weekend that upset Jake.  He missed his Lucy dog.  He did tell me a lot that he wanted to go home, but it wasn't as bad as last August.  He wavered between hating the Super 8 we were staying in, and thinking it was a lot of fun.  The messiness and clutter of my uncle's house really bothered Jake (but somehow having all his toys in our living room floor doesn't bother him?) 

Oh, and he ate CONSTANTLY and slept a lot, which leads me to believe he's about to hit another growth spurt.  (yikes.)

Not on the spectrum

Jake was evaluated by a psychologist yesterday, and she says for sure that he is nowhere on the autism spectrum -- not Aspberger's, not PDD (pervasive developmental disorder), nothing of the kind.

She says she suspects his behaviors are rooted in anxiety disorders -- social anxiety, and possibly OCD, but that he's too young to really give a diagnosis for those, and that he doesn't really need to see her for it at this point.  Oh, and she says that some of the way he acts is just attention-seeking toward me -- she bases this on the fact that he acted differently alone with her than the 10 minutes when I was trying to talk to her afterward.  (Umm, yeah, whatever.  I'm not going to touch that, other than to state that I don't think it's true.)

So.  It's nice to know for sure that he's not on the spectrum.  I don't know that I completely agreed with all of her diagnosis, because she was trying to attribute things like him not wanting his hands messy (which I know is because of his tactile defensiveness -- SENSORY ISSUE) to being OCD.  I still don't have a good reason why his speech isn't clear, but at this point if no one else is concerned about it, I'm not going to push it.  (I AM reading two books about how I might be able to help him with this, though.)

I found a few books at Amazon about anxiety stuff in kids, and once I'm closer to finishing the books from the shipment I just got, I'll order those.  I'll let you know how that goes.

I'm so proud!

Jake has been attending "food school" since October -- it's a group led by an Occupational Therapist to expose our kids to new foods and get them comfortable with different smells and textures and pretty much get them to TRY the foods they refuse to eat (which for Jake is fruits/veggies/anything spicy or slimy or wet or gooey or chewy, and for our friend Nate at food school, anything crunchy or carby or anything having to do with cheese.  If we combined Nate and Jake, we'd have a child who ate EVERYTHING.  Seriously.)  Anyway, we're a few weeks into our second 12 week session right now.  Jake is making a LOT of progress, and a few weeks ago he started doing the CUTEST thing at home.  He gets his little table (which he found under my bed) and says he wants to have home food school.  He makes me get him carrots (which he totally learned to eat in food school!) and all sorts of other random things, and we sit there and eat together.  He's getting REALLY good at at least TRYING a food he doesn't want, even if it's just sticking out his tongue and touching the food to it. It's been a really good experience for him, and we get to interact every Friday with other kids who have special issues like Jake.  That's just good stuff.

(P.S. Please excuse my messy floors.  I really do clean them a lot.  It's just never enough.  Maybe I should have Photoshopped that out?)

Sensory stuff

Rachel, our OT, gave me the address of probably the best web resource yet about SPD.  It's www.sensory-processing-disorder.com (and I'm going to keep the piece of paper she wrote it on, in crayon, because it was just a funny moment.)  It has a TON of very clear, easy to understand information, and lot of links.  And a newsletter!  Sign up for it if you have a kid with SPD!

A great book to read:  "Ten things every child with Autism wishes you knew." It was simply amazing. Rachel saw me reading it and asked to borrow it because she's been given so many SPD kids lately and had heard it was a good read.  The book was recommended to me by a mom at "food school" -- her son, Nathan, was a preemie and now has SPD issues (he is SUCH a cutie.)  She said she cried the whole time while reading it, and that doesn't surprise me at all.  (Umm, I did, too.)  This is by far the most accessible book I've found about SPD/Autism issues -- especially for those who don't like to read much.  There is very little medical terminology, it's very conversational, and it's pretty short.  If you have someone with Autism or SPD in your life, PLEASE read this book!

And then for Jake's major quirks these days (from an e-mail to Jake's OT):
-- He's hiding under chairs and tables a LOT to avoid social interaction or to have some self-imposed quiet time.  He even did it at church when he didn't want to talk to his best friend's mom -- who watches him for an hour every Monday!
-- he's been walking/spinning in a circle a LOT.  Never really a reason that I can see -- he just feels like doing it.
-- has been EXTREMELY independant lately -- which you think would be a good thing, and is mostly is, but he's really stubborn about it
-- lots of babbling, making up words, singing nonsense songs, or singing songs he knows
-- he's getting better about holding a pencil -- sometimes will do it without the special grips -- but when he tries to write his name, he has no concept of space and order.  (Which I guess is semi-normal for 4.)  It's not linear at all when he writes letters.  He makes the A about 4 times as wide as it should be, sometimes makes the J's sideways.  I did have him write his name on the backs of Christmas thank-you cards -- over the course of 3 days he wrote 10!
-- Whenever we sit down on the couch to write letters or do a workbook (with a lapdesk on his lap), he can't keep his legs still.  He does a weird shaking his legs/bopping up and down thing when he gets self-conscious when he's standing up, too -- like when we're posing for pictures.  I don't know how to make him just hold still the few times a day I really need him to!
-- there's a song on my Grey's Anatomy CD -- #9, How We Operate, Gomez  -- that Jake is obsessed with.  He asks me to play it whenever we're in the car, and he sings it non-stop (which is actually really cute.  he's gonna be a rock star, I think.)  Mom and I think he likes it so much because of the minor key and the thumping rhythm at the beginning.

What I'm reading right now

When I was browsing in Border's the other day, killing time and looking for interesting books about Sensory Processing Disorder that I might have missed from browsing on-line, I happened upon this: A Different Kind of Perfect: Writings by Parents on Raising a Child with Special Needs.  I looked through it a bit -- it's a collection of essays by a bunch of different parents, about dealing with their child's issues (here is the link at Amazon) and decided that at $17, it was well worth a purchase.

I've read about half-way through.  The children the parents are writing about have Down Syndrome, genetic "defects," hearing loss, autism, and two so far have had the sensory problems that Jake has (which I was glad to see -- made me feel like less of an imposter, reading the book.)

Why do I say that?  Well, I feel like I'm kind of in a no-man's-land in the whole "special needs child" thing . . . while it's true that Jake isn't developing "normally" or "typically," we're not faced with the whole "he'll never have a normal life, never drive, never live on his own" kind of thing like so many parents have to go through.  Sure, he needs extra help and understanding right now, but I'm fairly positive -- and this isn't just a mother's hope, it's based on what I understand about his condition -- that he WILL grow up to be a normally-functioning and independent adult.  And he LOOKS normal.  And he doesn't have a label that's easy for other people to understand.  Most people and even some doctors don't know ANYTHING about SPD. 

And he will be in "main-stream" classes in school, but will probably require an IEP and possibly some special attention throughout the school day -- which isn't that odd of a thing.  Heck, when I was in K or 1st, I had to be taken out of my class a few times for some "speech therapy," simply because I had learned to talk in Texas and then moved to Montana and all the teachers thought I talked funny.  Totally not my problem.  Soon after, I was being taken out of class for a "gifted and talented" program (which even then, made me wonder why they couldn't make up their minds about me.  Heh.)

But back to the book.  I love it.  I love reading what other parents have to say.  Sure, hearing from medical professionals and all is great, but I want to talk to someone who has been there, done that, and has some perspective.  And that's what this book offers.

SPD Jake update

I know I've been a slacker blogger lately (well, for me.  LOL) but I'm recovering from Thanksgiving, work is busy, and at home it's all about the Christmas tree.  But here's a quick update on what Jake has been up to:

Monday night after I picked Jake up, we went to the YMCA and he played with other kids while I walked on a treadmill for 30 minutes. No problems.  (My Monday night piano student cancelled.) Then we went to the grocery store and he helped me pick out some food -- he had some social anxiety problems during check-out (doesn't like to be stuck with strangers looking at him and talking to him -- but the check-out people at Publix are SO nice!). We came home and had a mini "food school" in our kitchen -- mirroring the things we've been doing in the food therapy group.

I feel like I've absorbed enough of how the OT works with the kids and the food to be able to do it myself with Jake (I think we just have 3 weeks left in the 12 week program, so I want to get a head start on doing it myself.) I got Jake to taste strawberry applesauce and a kiwi, and then he ate FOUR baby carrots! This is MAJOR!!! I got him to taste them and take a small bite, and he just decided that he really likes them and started chowing down. I guess it's true that kids have to taste something 10 times before they decide if they like it!!!!  So that was pretty awesome.

We've been working hard on getting Jake to hold his pencil the right way.  He wants to hold all writing utensils like a hammer.  I'm not stressing right now about crayons and markers, but we're working with pencils and pens, putting writing grips on them so it's easy for him to know where to put his fingers, and we do workbooks together.  I just buy any preschool workbook I can find at Target, Walmart, Walgreens, etc, and we sit together and work on a few pages at a time.  Jake actually REALLY likes doing it -- hooray! maybe he'll be like me and love homework!  LOL -- and he's getting much better at being able to draw things deliberately.

Jake has been really . . . how do I describe it? . . . bull-in-a-china-shop lately.  He has broken two Christmas ornaments because he just hasn't been careful.  He's jumping and flopping around a lot, slipping on the kitchen floor, knocking things down . . . he's just not thinking ahead enough to know that he should slow down or things will get broken, people will get hurt.  And I know that's a lot to expect from a 4 year old, but he HAS shown me in the past that he can be careful, so that leaves me wondering what's up now.  My mom has noticed it, too, especially that he isn't listening well and isn't staying with her.  So she's taking him to the mall today to do some shopping, and is going to put the Elmo safety harness (coughcoughleashcough) on him because she doesn't want to lose him and at this point, we don't trust him to stay with her.  And that's kind of sad, but you do what you have to do, you know?

Pretty much right now I'm trying really hard to be patient with Jake and hope he outgrows this particular way of acting.  :)