How to Feel Your Best

Would you believe with me if I said that  it was personal belief that how we feeel in our inner self, whether it be content, excited, or angry is connected to our mouths.  So dont let the title fool you.  This blog is all about one thing and one things only and f your wondering what the one thing could be, I willtell you but first I have to give credit where credit is due.  Wait for that one thing for just one minute.

7 years ago I was giving a job for a dedicated assistant with a child who had autism.  Now come to find out that child had the most severe kind of autism I will see within those next 7 years but I definitely know now what this wonderful time of day is because of that child with autism and the autism coordinator Sullivan who allowed me to sit in on the meetings to discuss this particular child's behavior plan.  I worked with many wonderful people, and as with any experence, different kinds of people that were difficult to work with.  One particular year that will always stand out in my head as the changing point in my autism training was thee year I was blessed to work with THEE autism celebrities in my my little world Truman and Casey!  These 2 ladies are awesome with these kids and they took me under their wing for the year (whether they knew it or not) and taught me everything they knew about dealing with a diffcult disability in the classroom.  So, this magical time that this blog is about is all thanks to one particularly important mentor like person in my life (again whether she knows it or not)  But this one's for you Truman!

It's Oral Motor Time!  It's Oral Motor Time!  We'll pat our mouth and pat our cheeks because its Oral Motor Time!

That is thee intro to a great magical time of day that I believe is the yeast to all classrooms that have children with autism in them.  This time of day is something I now am lucky enough to do with my students EVERY day and the progress during and after with social, language, speech, and many other learning objectives that are intertwined int the special time is not surprising to me!

If your wondering why I keep saying Oral Motor and magical special time, you really have to see what it is I'm talking about to understand and part of my journey I do hope to have instuctional videos for teachers to add this magic to any room with children with special needs, whether it be autism, ADD, OCD, ED, or other sensory dysfunctions that cause lack of concentration, irratability to change, and excess behavior problems that can take up alot of time out of the day when they do happen.  So the goal of Oral Motor time is to decrease irratability while also creating an attention span and decreasing behavior problems.  These children are not necessarly hard to teach, however you have to see it as you are "their" teacher not they are "your" student!  For example "your students" may suppose to be seated while learning but because you are "their" (child with autism's) teacher, you may have bean bags or allow standing!  That's just one example of how I try to be "their" teacher!  They may be "my" students but they teach me more than  I could ever teach them and for that I just want to give them what I KNOW they need from me!  That isn't a spelling test, but the option to take it verbally.  These small modifications for "your" student with autism are what make you "their" teacher.

So what is Oral Motor time and how can you add this regime to be "their" teacher this year!  Oral Motor time is a time when you can be silly, have fun, and move about.  Oral Motor Time which I now call Sensory Time is about sensory input at the start of the morning and afternoon to gain their trust and attention span.  We begin by sitting at the table with mirrors and an indivudal sensory kit for the students.  But the real fun is when we sing songs, get up and dance and do yoga before the speech lady comes to give her lesson.  The sensory kits for each child can all have the same thing or you can modify the objects to be specific to the child's needs.  In my boxes this year we tried to keep a toothbrush, washcloth, mini kalediscope, chapstick, and a tiny slinkie.  Of course the teacher had a box of her own to demonstrate looking in the mirror at themselves toSEE where they are, the use of aroma was good to smell which they love and seem to be able to smell very strong scents that help get their attention to attend to taking turns and passing objects to their friends.  We use the wash cloth to pat our face to feel and add lotion.  We use the tooth brush to open their mouth while looking in the mirror so they can see and feel their mouths.  By the end of the year, the child who never made eye contact with anyone is usually making faces at himself in the mirror.  These little techniques that I learned along the way are things kids LOVE to do, so your building their trust by doing it with them.  They sit on the bus to get to school and then we expect them to sit down and learn without gaining their full attention first.  An autism classroom without a magical sensory time, where you can dim the lights and play music or sing songs is like a loaf of bread without yeast to me, because I know the children need this magical time so they can "rise to the occassion and pay attention to the lesson.  This time of day can be set aside to be theme related where the activies are based around a story or objective on the chld's IEP.  However, its fun for the kids so yu have their attention, its silly to watch to you have their trust, and this is the year I want to document this TRUE METAMORPHOSIS in the making.

After we teach the children to use their boxes independently they become responsible to put their box away.  They claim this responsiblitiy on their own usually, this is a goal but was not taught just a natual consequence of loving their little boxes so much, they know where to put it away because they were paying attention.  This gain of responsibility usually carries over to their notebook for handwriting and papers we hand out as well.    After or Before Oral Motor is a good time for a snack or something tastey and then you may begin teaching the child with autism.  You can try to without this magical time of day, but let's just say your life could be alot easier if you gave it a shot in the dark.

After they are all wormed up with lotion, washcloths, toothbrushes, mirrors, and silly games like Yoga Freeze  and dance party USA we normally can sit for the rest of the morning until lunch.  After lunch is another good time of day to practice this sensory regime to see how far their attention spans last in the afternoon! 

Stop & Smell the Roses

The expression "stop and smell the roses" has a hidden message behind it that we all know in the back of our mind that helps in finding one’s true sense of self.  Anybody can be busy but it takes a person to who know that wherever it is they are they got themselves to that place.  Whereever you go there you are.  But body position is another sense within itself.  We are speaking of smelling today  and sometimes you have to make yourself stop and smell the roses once in awhile.  The world around us might have us busy, nervous, overwhelmed, and stressed but sometimes it’s in our best interest to stop and smell the season around us.  Whether it be at the beach to listen to the waves, or the smell of pumpkin pie at thanksgiving, our senses of the seasons help define a great deal of sensational self.  What is this sensational self you speak of?  I am who I am without having to know what season it is right.  Well, through understanding how our senses intake the world around us we can understand that who we are in the summer has a different rhythm than whowe are in the autumn, and life is not just one continual season starting in summer of life when we are born and ending in winter of life after we lived our life instead our seasons of life should be a constant rejuvenation of one’s self through all the stages we go through.   I hope that the in my winter with barren trees I can find within myself an endless summer.    The seasons change and the pull on the energy influences new smells and sights for the new season.   It can be overwhelming for a person with sensory difficulties or autism to flow with these changes and certain times of the year can be harder than others, just like summer is the one of the easiest seasons for me to enjoy.  How many people can related to SADD, one could say this seasonal affect is a sensory processing disorder because our senses are not receiving the correct amount of light. Sensory process can cause a person to be scared of Santa Claus because he does not fit into your daily routine, or how about the exact opposite and write to Santa every day as part of your regime.  The nervous system is an interesting topic and as I dive into my seven sensations I want to first stop and smell the roses. 

Have you ever been walking down the street and get a big whiff of McDonald’s and think of French fries?  The little tiny particles in the air that cause that whiff  cannot be seen with the eye but the nose knows best and can spot that McDonald’s smell it seems as soon as you step out the gym.  Are you hungry enough to want to taste McDonald’s, probably?  Is it a coincidence they put a McDonald’s right down the street from the gym, probably a secret plot against your new year’s resolution right?!!  Which is why I workout at home!

Why does smell cause us to relate pictures and places to them and why can a smells recall a memory that McDonald’s fries are so good with a chocolate shake quickly enough to have you waiting in the drive through for a small French fry and shake before you can remember to put your seat belt on. 

This power sense of smell is one of the sensation that can help create positive memory recall as a means to therapeutically retrain negative experiences that people with sensory difficulties may have in concurring reoccurring behavior even addictions.  Smells can act as triggers to help retrain the smoker from wanted a cigeratte with the right calming oils.  Smells can help food addicts calm down before eating as a suppressant.  These powerful little particles that are not even big enough to be seen are strong enough to change our behavior and when harnessed correctly can be used to treat anxiety, addiction, or other compulsions.

If every day the children come into the classroom with a smoothing smell of jasmine in the spring or peppermint in the winter, there senses will be pleased and gain memory recall to the lesson about the holidays more when associatating the classroom experience with the smell of pepperiment.  Christmas is one of the best times to use the sense of smell to create fun memories with children.  We bake cookies, put up pine trees, burn scented candles, and eat feasts of food.  However these changes in our everyday life can be overwhelming all at once.  As the seasons slowly, change make you to slowly add changes to the routine. 

Since it is summer I feel it necessary to stop talking about Christmas, although this would be a good place to add that I will be collecting a donation of toys this Christmas in July at all my sensory facials for a great cause.  Toys are one of the great sensory items children with autism like and need to use to learn and explore.  Feel free to contact me if you have any toy clutter that you would like to donate to My Christmas for Autism in July this summer!  Now getting back to summer....

A good place to transition kids with sensory dysfunctions to get to the beach with as few meltdowns as possible i would start with a Barney Beach video in the living room where you can practice putting your bathing suit on,  pretend pack the towel bag, and put on their sandals to get ready to walk to the beach.  Sensory Sand tables would be a good place to start if the child does not like the way the sand feels or you do not know how the child will like the way the sand feels.  Exposure is always best when warming up to the nervous system with changes.  I used an infatable pool without water to fill with books to sit back and read at the pool, so that when its break time at the pool the child will have a familar activity.  Definitely practice applying sunscreen as the season changes into summer because just like its hard to transition out of the winter coat and even though most kids love lotion, this change in routine needs to be slowly introduced because it does smell and feel different than most lotions.  After you have played with sand maybe fill up the pool or play in a sprinkler to clean off before heading inside or out for a blanket picnic and possible naptime undernearth an umbrella on their beach towel in the middle of the living room watching Beach Barney would be a good way to end this sensory experience so the child begins to develop a regime about going to the beach rather than just taking them there without any prior knowledge.  Lack of exposure to change is one of the main causes that I have seen cause meltdowns when dealing with sensory processing disorder!

I wonder how it feels?

What is Your Temple?  What is Their Temple?

We all have 7 sensational senses that work together to create the template of who we are and how we operate in the world through input from how we see, smell, smell, taste, hear, feel, and think and be.  How would you be feeling today after you woke up took a shower if you felt pins and needles every morning.  You put your clothes on put you couldn’t forget about the tag on your shirt and the pants made your legs inch, would you always wear shorts and long sleeve shirts.    You ate breakfast but every morning it had to be the same thing and it Was NOT cereal nor could anyone around you eat cereal for breakfast.  You ate pudding and everyone else could eat what they wanted but it was NOT cereal so that you would not have to start your day all over in the after math of a crisis of anxiety around concept of “cereal”  No one around you understands what your feeling like, but everyone eats something other than cereal to ease your morning along.  You leave your house and wish you could walk around all day with gloves on because the air bothered your skin.  So there you are walking to the bus stop, middle of winter with snow boots, shorts, long sleeve tag less shirt underneath your winter coat with gloves on.  The sounds of the bus send thrills of anxiety up your back but you have to get to work and that’s just the morning before your day has begun.  How would you feel if your morning began under panic, anxiety, and feelings of attack just through the way your sensory processing was impacting your nervous system.  One may understand why you would flap your hands if you didn’t know what they FELT like unless you did so AND had gloves on!  You didn’t like to touch people so everyone at work had to understand not to touch you so as to not send you into a panic or frenzy to the bathroom to collect your nervous system.  Your wash your hands and put your gloves back.  You begin to get nervous and start to touch your mouth, after taking off the gloves to touch your faces with your bare hand and then placing the glove back on.  After OCD takes over and you touch your face a good dozen times you put your gloves back on and return to your desk just waiting for the time to click on so you could just go home, lock your bedroom door and watch your favorite movie, the same one every week until you picked a new favorite!  The day in the life of autism may not be exactly how its depicted here, but after my years of experience I can imagine if I personally had a sensory process disorder or I have always wondered how the brain of a child with autism operated, if I knew I would create a cyber-experience so I could see how it felt for myself.  But I do not know.  I can only imagine.  But can you imagine.  How would you feel waiting for the bus as it pulls up with the newest cereal box advertisement and screeching to a halt?  Would you wear earplugs and an eye patch around your eye to block your view from the evil words?  I bet I would but I also wonder how I would look running around shielding myself from the evil sights and plugging out all the nerve wracking noises.  I would probably just turn around and lock myself in my room before the day even began.  However the child or adult with autism or any sensory processing disorder could very well share a small reality that is similar to the stresses of touch and sound and sights.  As a child they seclude themselves so as to not operate under stress.  Most children do not want to willing go places with the help of therapeutic intervention.  They aren’t calling their friends or even thinking about who their friends are.  They are watching their favorite video because the video is a predictable sight that you know won’t send you into an inner downward spiral. 

My personal therapeutic mission is to find all the little ways just as some have to handle animals and elderly and children properly, but to create a new sensational way of handling some of the stresses to teach the person with autism to operate more fully in their environment while not controlling the input but how they react to the input and or the ways and tricks of the bag to help calm their nervous system.  Instead of removing the gloves in the bathroom, to touch their face when they are nervous about being touched they could have Chap Stick to hold and use.  There are so many facets to sensory overload and how it occurs.  It is a gradual process that can be manifested under extreme stress faster than if no demands are placed however, with therapeutic exposure the stress can be handled so extreme stress does not hinder their daily functions.  Thier inner temple can be stablized so the input of stress does not halt all activity because of anxiety on the nervous system.

The next 7 blogs will concentrate on each of the 7 sensational senses that make us who we are!

A sensory experience

In the upcoming school year I will be blogging about the successes and changes I see happening in certain "types" of my children with special needs, whether it be autism, aspergers, attention deficiet, or hyper active, these 4 A's are going to lead to an Awesome year.  The examples will be fictional stories about my sensory daily interactions however the therapies talked about and scenerios will be fictional for the purpose of treating the general sensory child.  There are certain types of sensory sensitive children.  In the introduction of the blog I will go over the different types, what they are, and then as the school year progress we will go through a series of actvities that will help the child be included in the least restricted environment!  A child with autism should be included in all classrooms because of their autism not despite it!~  Stay tune for the beginning of this blog in August!