Meet Neil, and watch this amazing You Tube video which explains SPD from a kid’s perspective.
Sit down, put aside 10 minutes and watch this video explaining sensory processing from the perspective of a child. He does a great job explaining sensory systems, overload, control and how everyone is different. He talks about knowing yourself and your body.
This week I was going to write about this exact topic. It was written well for Starfish therapies so I am sharing it here>
Occupational therapists are frequently asked what the difference between visual perception and eyesight is. Vision plays a significant role in the way we interact with our environment and how we learn.
Visual acuity refers to how clearly a person sees. Vision is more than just eye sight and how clearly we see. A person can have “20/20” vision but also have difficulty with visual perceptual skills.
Visual perception refers to the brains ability to make sense of what the eyes see. All of the body’s sensory experiences contribute to visual perception including sight, sound, touch, smell, balance, movement and muscle control contribute to visual perception. Visual perception is important for many different school tasks including reading, writing, cutting, copying from the board, visualizing past experiences, giving/getting directions, navigating the playground, and eye-hand coordination. The sub-areas of visual perception include the following:
Visual discrimination: The ability to see differences and…
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Mandy learns about and receives cranio-sacral therapy from our guest instructor, Cathy Holway of The Neurovascular Institute.
In early December, some APT and other therapists joined us to welcome Cathy Holway from the Neurovascular Institute to learn about cranio-sacral therapy. Cathy is a doctor of physical therapy who received her training from the Upledger Institute, then later created her own form of work, Sacred Spaces, which has evolved into the Neurovascular Institute. From her website: the curriculum continues to synthesize outstanding, science-based medical education with the art and spirit of healing. We spent the weekend practicing on each other, getting immersed in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology and brainstorming how to use the treatment with our kiddos.
Cathy tells us that touch rewires the brain.
When touch is used to access the brain, as in cranio-sacral therapy (CST), the goal is to help a client (child or adult) to move in the world with less effort and to engage with the world in a more positive way. In a typical session of about 30 minutes to an hour, the therapist moves along the client’s body “holding” in certain ways and areas to provide a release to the neurophysiology of the tissues. As the practitioner, we learned that our presence, touch and breath has a profound influence on the effectiveness of CST. For most of our kids, this would mean activating the parasympathetic nervous system to help calm and relax the child.
If you’d like to learn more about CST to see if it might be right for your child, speak to your OT or visit Dr. Cathy’s website where you will find a wealth of information.
The book “The Reason I Jump” is written by 13 year old Naoki Higashida. Diagnosed with autism, this mostly nonverbal young man used an alphabet grid to write the book. It’s incredibly honest and both heartwarming and heartbreaking. The book is broken up into snippets with headings like, Why don’t you make eye contact when you are talking to people? or Why can you never sit still? The author describes feeling scared, overwhelmed and losing his “sense of gravity” often and that is the reason he jumps. It’s a powerful and thought provoking read, as you can see from all the sticky notes sticking out of my copy. It will change the way you see and think about someone you love with autism.
Advanced Pediatric Therapies 