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Page 2 of 3 Occupational Therapy a Solution
Traditional therapy for those with sensory processing problems involves occupational therapy, which focuses on learning living skills such as eating and dressing as well as getting sensory information into a child's body.
The idea is to change pathways in the brain, says Stephanie Martens, an occupational therapist at Boulder Community Hospital's Pediatric Rehabilitation Services.
The therapist may try gently swinging the child in an effort to help her tolerate movement, Martens says. Or the therapist might brush a child's skin with a soft brush to encourage better toleration of touch.
Although the amount of improvement varies by child, Martens says she has seen kids improve significantly with therapy. "They are more cuddly, they are not acting out at school, they are not overwhelmed, they are much more focused," she says. "They are not that clumsy kid anymore."
Ryan began a nontraditional therapy in mid-November at the Sensory Learning Institute of Boulder. At the center, children come twice a day for half hours sessions for 12 days, where they are exposed to movement, light, and sound simultaneously in an unpredictable, gentle fashion, says Mary Bolles, who developed the method. After that, the child is treated at home with light therapy for 18 more days.
Children lie in the dark on a slowly moving motion table. A small light pulses on and off with colors throughout the visual spectrum. Music volume varies, and some frequencies are randomly deleted. Bolles says the unpredictable nature of the therapy excites the brain stem area, waking up the sensory system.
Ryan's parents say the Sensory Learning Institute had a tremendous effect on him. They say immediately after the treatments they noticed an inner calmness and happiness.
"Transitions became effortless," his mother says.
Two weeks after therapy ended, Ryan had some tantrums, but they weren't as bad and were far fewer, his mother says. He has since begun a traditional therapy program and regained ground, whereas previously, traditional therapy was too over-arousing for him, she says.
The 30 day program costs $2,550. Some, like Miller, who is also the director of the Sensory Processing Treatment and Research center at Children's Hospital in Denver, question the validity of the program where a child passively receives therapy.
"The child has to have an inner drive to self-actualize to get the most out of the therapeutic experience, " she says.
Still, others swear by it. Last week, California resident Susan Daniel traveled to Boulder with her Autistic son, Matthew Davis, 6, for treatment at the Sensory Learning Institute.
Matthew falls a lot, flaps his hands and doesn't talk. He would only eat with his fingers, and no one could touch his mouth. Six days after starting the therapy, Matthew began eating with a fork and spoon, his mother says. He listened on the phone for the first time and also for the first time he is responding to his mother singing "Twinkle Twinkle." he looks at her and tries to say the last word of each verse.
She recently took him to Red Robin for lunch. She says previously he would always flap his hands excitedly - a typical self-stimulating behavior of autistic children - when he saw fans.
"There were probably 12 fans and he wasn't 'stimming,' " she says. "If this is all we got, I would be happy with it."
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