What happens to a child who grows up with virtually no parenting, love, affection or human touch? “Nearly everything we learn about being human—how to speak, how to walk, everything—comes from the people who raise us,” Oprah says. “Today, we’re going to look at what happens when nobody does.”

This was my son.

Dr. Bruce Perry, a Child psychiatrist featured on the Oprah show states that neglect is the absence of necessary stimulation in order to build a certain part of the brain. In order for children to learn, to stimulate areas of their brain they NEED stimulation. Without stimulation they will learn to stimulate them themselves or retract into themselves. Your brain will form differently.

Dr. Federici calls this Institutional Autism in Institutionalized children. But, what about biological children?

Dr. Perry calls this total global neglect. Read more

Activities to develop fine motor skills can often be hard to find because toys today are geared towards entertainment. However, when you step back and look at educational products you will find that educational products can be just as entertaining and sometimes even more rewarding than any toy in the house.

AJ loves playing with me in the afternoon. Read more

Institutional Autism is not a genetically induced Autism like most diagnosed here in the States, but one learned from years of neglect and sensory deprivation. Dr. Federici, a renowned adoption psychologist has done a vast amount of research on this topic and written numerous articles. He and M. Rutter, am American Psychologist indicate some of the major symptoms of institutional autism as:

• Sensory and social deprivation can result in the autistic-like behaviors.
• These behaviors may diminish after the child is removed from the initial deprived environment.
• A substantial minority of children will continue to exhibit these difficult behavior patterns for many years.

Risk Factors:
• Heredity and neurological make-up of the adopted child.
• Lack of postnatal care and negative conditions of development before institutionalization.
• Age when placed in an institution and the length of institutionalization.
• Conditions in institution/country of adoption.

Basically, children learn to be autistic because of their experience in the orphanage…stimulating themselves to pass the time or to entertain themselves. In our case, we believe AJ was swaddled for a decent amount of the two years he was there. He was chronically ill will bronchial infections due to an undiagnosed milk intolerance and an oat and banana allergy (the two main foods in his diet there ). Thus, if he was ill he would have either been swaddled and placed on his back in his crib or left to sleep in the playpen off to the side.

Now, if you were 1-2 years old with nothing to do, no toys to play with…what would you do????

AJ learned to play with toys inappropriately (line up and spin all toys because what else can toys do?), poke his eyes, spin in circles, stare out windows, throw monster tantrums at ANY change in movement (if you were in the same place ALL day, would you like to be moved?), stare at lights to keep from sleeping, attentive to every sound (in his crib he could not make eye contact but could hear everything)…I could go on but those are the MAJOR items.

Now, those things have diminished, as have most of his sensory issues. As Federici and Rutter state, most children will recover from Institutional Autism given the right home life. Thank goodness he has been given that.

One thing that we are specifically working on is making sure that AJ has the right resources to improve, not just the “positive dynamic in the child’s development of appropriate behaviors in the family.” If he truly does have organic autism we need to make sure to have him tested on a regular basis. Now that AJ has been home two years and has made some language improvements we need to start chronically his improvements. If he does not make any improvements (or falls behind) we should be looking at organic autism, not just institutional autism.

This is cross posted from last year’s post at Discussing Autism.

Is your little one afraid to see Santa this year? Is he overstimulated by the mall and all the glittering lights, afraid of all the people, conscious of every detail around him, ready to flee at the slightest movement of someone in line, refusing to put on that shirt and tie for grandma?

In my search for tips on how to prepare AJ to visit Santa I only found two posts…This one and this one so it was obvious that it needed to be addressed.

Every parents’ dream is to get that beautiful picture of their son or daughter with Santa for the very first time. (Well, at least I know my dream was and I know that my mother pushes me to get my son all dolled up every year and take the most perfect posed shot I can.) But it is just not a reality for kids with autism or SPD, for children with developmental delays like PDD or anxiety.
Read more

As the holiday season approaches I know that I am becoming more nervous about dealing with crowds, family events, festivities, and even just holiday meals and having vacation time.

But, we can work to avoid the holiday meltdowns as much as we can. Ultimately, the meltdowns will come…we all know that but we can certainly try to avoid them.

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My son LOVES Halloween. He loves everything about Halloween…the pumpkins, the decorations, the hayrides, the farms (oh, the farms!), the costumes, the candy that he can’t eat, the lights…everything.

He has been talking about Halloween since August when he saw the first pumpkin in the store. I’m certainly not looking forward to the Christmas decorations because we all know how he reacted last year to the holiday decorations and the activity.

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What was the food like in the country you traveled to?

or

What do you think the food will be like in the country you are going to travel to?

Do you think that your child will like the food you have in your refrigerator? I know that we tried to keep AJ’s food the same but he took delight in some of the new foods. We fed him yogurt and bananas, baby rice cereal (he did not like our oatmeal), animal crackers, and graham crackers, etc. We tried to get him to eat meat and some cheeses but we found out that he was very lactose intolerant. He loved the Gerber crackers and fruit puffs because they had just enough sweetness in them that they were like candy for him.

 AJ thinks he is the ultimate Rock Star because he can write the letter M.

Rock on Kindy Rock Star, Rock on.

The causes of Sensory Integration/Sensory Processing Disorder are not entirely known because the disorder is neurological and so very diverse. It was first recognized 40 years ago by A Jean Ayres, Ph.D., OTR.

Sensory Integration Disorder is a neurological disorder that results from the brain’s inability to integrate information received from the body’s sensory systems. Those particular systems are responsible for sight, sounds, taste, temperature, pain, position, and movement. The brain takes information it receives, analyzes the information, and tells the body how to react to the information. When a child has sensory integration the brain misinterprets the information it receives and tells the body to act in a different manner.

Basically, the brain must organize all of the information it takes in, categorize and process the sensations and attempt to move and learn “normally”. If the brain can not do that then the output is dysfunctional.

Sensory integration includes not only the five senses but also balance and movement. Read more

How to do a Back to School Sensory Check-up:

1. Check all clothing for scratchy tags, nubbies from over wearing, and elastics are not too tight.

2. Make sure all new clothing is washed and all clothing that was possibly washed in another type of detergent (not a gluten/casein free detergent is rewashed.

3. Check that all school clothing fits correctly. I know that in our house AJ will not wear clothing that does not fit correctly. He won’t wear pajamas that do not fit snuggly or have “nubbies”. He was once up until 4 a.m. until I realized he did not like his pajamas. As soon as I changed them he fell right to sleep.

4. Make sure equipment like Weighted Lap Pads, scissors, weighted vests, ear muffs, school fidgets and vibrating toys for calmers are all in good shape. If they are not, head to Therapy Shoppe for all your school needs.

5. Fill out this form for your child’s teacher. (if you can’t read the form, go here.

6. Make sure the teacher has the following documents:
Understanding Sensory Integration Issues
Working with the Child Who Has Sensory Integration Disorder
Sensory Integration, Tips to Consider
Tips for Teachers