Tag: sensory modulation disorder
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Tactile Defensiveness And Water: One Approach
Even as an infant, any time I gave Tony a bath, he’d immediately fuss, quickly progress to crying, and even begin to scream sometimes as the water touched his skin. He was especially sensitive about water splashing on his face, and even a fine mist would cause him clench his body and face in startlement.…
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Our Pandemic Public Therapy Progress Report
A couple of weekends ago, on our last public therapy trip with Emily as Tony’s hab therapist, he laughed, smiled, and flapped as we walked towards the door of our local Fry’s. When we first started our public therapy programs, I never would have expected to see him looking happy in that context. The best…
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How We Did Neurologic Music Therapy Via Zoom
This week is another photographed journey, but this time we’re going to be moving past the challenges experienced in providing teletherapy to discuss the goals and therapeutic interventions for Tony’s NMT. We have been working on helping Tony increase his flexibility and spontaneous communication using Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT). Facilitating therapy looks different via teletherapy.…
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Resurrecting Public Therapy
The cashier at Bashas’ looked at me as she pulled Tony’s bag of suckers across the scanner and said, “I haven’t seen you guys in a while.” Her eyes crinkled around the corners, so I could see that she was smiling even though her mask covered much of her face. A whole year I thought,…
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King of the Changes
Miss Dee (Tony’s first occupational therapist) and I had been talking several years ago during one of his initial appointments, both about things that I had observed and things that she observed with our son. She looked at me and said something to the effect of, “So he really struggles with transitions.” I agreed but…
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Public Comments and Open Letter on Proposed Changes to the AAC Policy for Division of Developmental Disabilities Recipients
Earlier this week I submitted comments to the Division of Developmental Disabilities as part of a legally mandated public comment period for proposed changes to the policy that governs prior authorization for assistive speech device technology, or AAC. For a while now my posting schedule has been every Friday, however I felt like for those…
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Will We Look Away?
A couple of years ago, I was driving Tony to one of his many therapy appointments. As I pulled to a corner of an exit ramp, I lowered my window and held out some cash to a gentleman standing at the corner with a sign. He quickly met my eyes and then looked down, back…
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“Behind the Mask I Wear…”
Perhaps some of you may not have thought about it, but some of you may have given your imaginations brief rein to fill in the largely unwritten subtext of last week’s post. What does it feel like to stay awake entirely for one night and for parts of multiple nights after that holding and gently…
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When a Small Cut Becomes a Scary Scene
“…last night while I was trimming Tony’s fingernails, he jerked and I cut his finger…took off the tip of it, actually. We were unable to control the bleeding at home because he was fighting so bad against it, it was just me and Hannah because Andy was at work, and ended up having to call…
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A Little Community Safety Creativity
This summer has been serving up extra helpings of heat that just seem to keep coming. My patience has long past its fill of this weather, but these extra toasty temps just keep stretching up and on far higher than I want every time I look at the forecast. I have for many months felt…