Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Noah getting over excited on mowing day-this is a good example of how he can get when he gets a sensory overload!

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5 comments:

Notta Wallflower said...

Poor little guy. I always found it curious how kids with Aspergers/Autism have such significant sensory needs (usually related to touch/pressure/motion), but are so sensitive to auditory/visual stimuli. What does Noah like (sensory-wise) that calms him down, besides removing the auditory stimuli? Many of my students like hammock swings and those big therapy balls. Maybe you already have things like this around your house. If not, might be worth looking into for when Noah is on overload. :-)

10:04 AM
Melinda said...

Oh yeah...we have the therapy ball...what we call a BOUNCY ball that he can BOUNCE on when he needs to take a break and is overloaded. He also has a calm down book we made up for IMMEDIATE calming if he is frustrated about something. When he is on sensory overload however...there is not a lot we can do that has proven successful other than just letting it run its course. We have all these sensory fidgets and squishy toys and stretchy pulls and things like that. He will use those to maintain an even keel and be able to stay on task. However...again with sensory overload those things won't help. We get him out to play at the park a lot (usually every day) which helps allow him to not get so overloaded. BUT usually every day he will become overloaded at some point. Some days more than others. AND once he does you usually cannot get him calmed back down any time fast. You just have to let him be but tell him to not be too loud unless he is in his room. So it is constant reminders of "settle down" or "be a little more quiet". He does pretty well most times...but then there are days when he has a very hard trying day because he just cannot comply well at all. SO he ends up being physically exhausted. Like last night we were playing a handheld backgammon game. He loves it and is very good at it. However, he found it extremely difficult to sit still and play the game. He had to get up and run across the room and toss himself over the side of the couch in between his turn and my turn. EVERY TURN. CONSTANT motion and movement. CONSTANT. I finally just keep telling him I would not continue to play if he could not settle down. WHEN he finally does it is like a kid finally giving in to being tired and sleepy. He becomes a zombie and it is all he can do to function or stay awake! He is just completely exhausted.

12:08 PM
Melinda said...

Plus I forgot to mention...that when Noah gets overloaded and this wound up...he has ways to calm himself down. He will make sounds and do repetitive movements (stims) and eventually he can at least be in the moment better I guess you could say. His stimming acts as it would for any autistic...it actually serves as a means of almost meditation for his sensory system. It sounds weird but if you think about it....the sounds he makes sound very similar at times to the chanting or sounds people make when they meditate. I will post one of his moments where he is making sounds to give you a better idea. MOST times his sound making also involved movement at the same time....over and over and over...whether it be running back and forth up and down the hall like a caged animal or around the kitchen table or lying on his bed quietly and making sounds but still moving an object in the peripheral vision of his eyes to "scope" it out over and over again. I think I have some clips of this. I also have some sound clips of some of the sounds he makes. I am sure you have heard some of these before in your field!

4:09 PM
Notta Wallflower said...

Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the parents of students I work with mentioning behaviors similar to Noah's. What I find disturbing though, and maybe this is not the case for Noah, many of the kids I work with not only have Asperger's/Austism, but also OCD and anxiety. I'm not sure what to do about him getting to the point where nothing works to calm him down. One thing that has helped me "read" my students is that we have a behavior specialist (trained in ABA) who comes in to talk to our staff about certain phrasing to use and other techniques that are extremely helpful. It is expensive, but it's been the most effective thing I've seen as far as trying to 1) decrease the impact of events that cause a child to lose focus and 2) reduce the amount of time a child is off task becauase of the events around him/her. I'm sure you know all these things too - I hope I don't come across as preachy. In a way, I'm in the same stream as you are, but a different boat. I do not have a child with Noah's issues, but I work with them and I care about them and love them, all the same. My hat is off to you and your husband - I can only imagine the challenges you face on a daily basis.

6:06 PM
Melinda said...

well...I guess some would look at it as challenges and some days I guess it can be that way. BUT for the most part Noah is pretty good and much more stable for the majority of the times now than in the past. Transitions and changes don't bother him much at all these days. AND now if he has a "moment" they are very short lived. He won't go on and on and have temper tantrums or outbursts, etc. He can get ahold of himself pretty fast now and calm down. Sometimes all I have to do is give him "the look" and then maybe say "I think you need to calm down" or "you have a really snotty attitude today and you better change it before you do anything else" and he snaps out of it. I imagine his little body is bombarded constantly throughout the day with sensory overload he is just plain exhausted by the end of each day.

6:24 PM

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