Sensory Smarts - Behavior and Oral Motor

Workshop #2:
Sensory vs. Behavior

The next workshop wasn't as in-depth, but I did take away a couple of points.  Sheila Slatter, the presenter and main teacher at a school she started herself out of her home, talked about how to tell the difference between sensory and behavioral actions.  She defined them this way:

Sensory need: internally driven; a thirst that needs to be quenched
Behavior need: means to an end; used to obtain, express, avoid, or delay something

A sensory need, if taken care of, can lead to fulfilling behavior.  For example, a child in circle time might have been sitting for 20 minutes and is feeling rather anxious about needing to move.  If he moves, he will get in trouble.  But he can't sit for another minute.  He could act out (negative behavior) and get himself removed from the circle, or he could signal the teacher (positive behavior) he needs to move.  Obviously, we all have these sensory needs...they may just not present themselves as strongly as they do in sensory kiddos like Ian.

On the other hand, a behavior can lead to a sensory overload.  For example, a child may be sent out of the room for talking to loud.  As he leaves the room, a loud bell rings.  The child starts to panic because he doesn't know how long the bell will last, what it means, or if there is going to be a fire drill with lots of people rushing into the hall.  So he runs straight out the doors to the playground.

This distinction between the two (sensory and behavior) will be really helpful for me as we evaluate Ian's progress as we move to a more structured school environment.

Sheila also pointed out that if a child feels he is in control, inappropriate behaviors often disappear.  She gave the example of Drew, an autistic eight year old she has been working with.  Drew typically had not done well at birthday parties and his family recently attended his aunt's birthday party.  However, Drew did very well at this party because he got to choose where the candles on the cake went.  While Ian isn't on the autism spectrum, choice is definitely important to him (heck, it's important to all of us!).  So this is something I will definitely try to remember when and where we run into power struggles (we had about fifty million of them today, so I'm sure we'll see more...)

Workshop # 3:
Feeding/Oral Motor Disorders

This workshop was presented by Sally Bober who has her own clinic to treat feeding and oral motor issues. The workshop was geared at parents wondering, "what in the world can I do with my picky eater?"  That was definitely us!  Ian is extremely sensitive when it comes to textures and colors he will eat.  James and I have both force-fed him brown sugar thinking he would love it once he tasted it.  That was a big fat NO!  I got bit and James had to clean up a lot of spit as Ian tried to get it out of his mouth.

Like the first workshop, this one really opened my eyes to some new possibilities.  Sally started off the seminar by asking how many parents had been told by their pediatrician or therapist that their child would eat when hungry.  Most of the room raised their hand.  Sally then asked parents to raise their hand if this was indeed true for their child.  Very few hands were raised.  I was surprised by this.  I knew Ian absolutely, positively could not be forced to eat something, no matter how hungry he was, but I hadn't really considered how many kiddos were like that.

There were two parts that were extremely helpful in the rest of her seminar.  The first was when Sally explained that foods have different "touches" in the mouth - light, medium, and hard.  Things that squirt (like watermelon) are considered light foods because the squirt is a light touch.  Those squirts can feel like having a feather in your mouth or having a hair in your mouth that you can't get rid of.  I had never thought of that this way!  It certainly is nice to have a mental visual of what Ian is probably experiencing when I can't even get him to eat brown sugar!  Heavy touch foods are usually thick breads and crunchy foods and children who are very sensitive eaters tend towards these foods (holds true for Ian as well).

Sally told stories of children who literally only ate one food and the success she had seen with them.  She had a mom come tell her story of what they had been through, which included spending $35,000 at Baylor only to get their four year old to "kiss and lick" Cheetos...never put them in his mouth.  Sally's approach was quite different.  She starts with basic oral motor skills and within seven months, the kiddo who only ate pureed baby food prunes at four and a half was eating regular meals when kindergarten started.

Developing oral skills was my second great take-away from her workshop.  According to Sally, lots of kiddos with eating issues don't have great awareness of where their head, tongue, teeth, and lips are or how to use them to eat effectively.  This totally makes sense.  Unlike a lot of other eating programs, Sally focuses purely on developing these oral motor skills and desensitizing gag refluxes until she feels the child can handle new food.  And by new food, I mean spiral pasta instead of elbow pasta. Her kiddos are that picky.  And so is Ian!  But I had never thought about the oral motor skills needed (or the need to desensitize a gag reflux) for a child to eat.

While we are not planning on looking into any sort of feeding therapy just yet, it's nice to know what we should be looking for and who we can go to if needed.  Right now, we are just going to wait and see how Ian does.  He will have pretty intensive speech therapy this coming year through the school district, and our hope is that he will develop some of the motor skills and language needed to expand his food horizons.