What a day 1/25/07

Ok so, what a day it was. Hunter actually went to bed last night and stayed there. As did everyone else. Today was interesting when I thought Trinity was asleep and she walkes ever so quietly up to me and yells "mama, popo" Oh boy, poop there was from head to toe on this child. She's been doing that lately. The minute she does her business off comes the diaper and smear away. You'd think that after the first time of stinky poo in you hair, hands and face that she wouldn't do it again, but nope round two of poo everywhere this evening. I'm tired of giving here baths and she has horrible ezcema so that does not do it any good. So for Hunter he had an ok day, He screamed and yelled alot. His two favorite phrases are " I hate baby's" and " I hate you forever" . Tonight Aaron took Hunter and Autumn sledding and you would have thought that would have worn him out. Not at all, he came home and had to run in circles in the living room for an hour. Drove me nuts. But anyway. I hopeing to get Hunter to the Witwer childrens therapy center next week. I'll probably get a phone call on Monday to set that up.
As for the picture. that was after sledding tonight when they were running around, I managed to get them to stop for 2 seconds for a quick picture.

Pam

Todays crazy and strange events

Kari was kind enought to interpret Hunters very Professional language of his first referral. Thank you so much. I also found out today that where Hunter will be receiving OT will have to do another evaluation on him because they left out a few things in the original. But, I guess what the heck, It will be intersting to see how they compare. The first referral is from the only place in the town we live in and I decided that I'm going to do this the right way since it took me two years just to get the referral in the first place. So, I've decided to go 65 miles away to an actual childrens therapy center. Hopefully I will get in this next week to the same OT that works with my nephew that also has SID. As for how Hunter has been in the last 24 hours..... kind of weird. Last night he would not go to bed. I finally went to bed around 3:30am and he was still awake. Hunter has not done this for over 6 months. But the weird part of today was that he was actually really sweet. He had a couple minor meltdowns, but nothing that lasted long. Today was a preschool day for him also and he refused to take his boot and snowpants off, He told me he was going to go to sleep. I couldn't help but laugh. anyway when I went back to pick him up he was all smiles, extremely happy. He looked like a differnt kid almost. Usually on the way home is when he has his meltdowns and screams all the way home, there have even been times that I'd have to stop and buckle him back up. So today was really strange. The only thing that they did differnt was that they actually went outside and played in the snow. Wow, I'll have to make him do that tomarrow to, and see If I get the same response. As for going to bed tonight.... He's been asleep for over an hour. Hope he stays asleep. Well that's a recap for today, some good progress towards figuring out what this all means. I have tons of questions, but I'll post them another time when I don't have so much other information to talk about.


Hi Pam,
The language used in the SID report is definately "professional
language"! I volunteer to attend and interpret meetings with parents
to help them understand what the heck the drs and therapists are
saying. So, here we go...

The test results indicate that Hunter has a SID. In the context of the
test he showed difficulties with auditory, visual, vestibular (inner
ear), touch, oral as well as motor planning (gross motor-large
movements) and emotional regulation. These areas of "disregulation"
are affecting his emotional responses (over react/no reaction),
activity level (hyper/lethargic) and his social responses.

Good news...he showed no difficulties with fine motor skills (small
movements), sitting still (this is great, many children with SID can
not regulate even when they sitting still!) and sensory sensitivity
(not EVERYTHING is bothering him all at once).

A SID basically means that the senses are not working together
properly. AUDITORY: may hear things louder or softer than others.
Certain frequencies are "received" different. You may be talking,
assuming that because you are the main source of sound that he can hear
you, but actually, he can hear things we can not or do not pay
attention to and he can not "discriminate" between these sounds.
VESTIBULAR: the vibrations in your inner ear give signals to our
brains that control much more than sound. Receiving these signals
immproperly can cause full body difficulties. TOUCH: touch that may
be too firm or soft for most people can be soothing or irritating to a
person with "touch sensitivities" . Deep Pressure, Brush Therapy, etc
are often effective interventions. ORAL: certain textures or tastes
are intolerable to the child and there are often serious eating issues
(limited selection, etc). MOTOR PLANNING: "planning" what to do with
your body before you do it. Most of us do not consciously THINK before
we move. Most children with motor planning issues "over think" what
should be done next and often the autonomic response is not there due
to over thinking all of the possibilities. EMOTIONAL REGULATION: he
experiences emotional "over loads" and does not respond "typically" to
emotionally charged situations. This could include anxiety,
motivation, extreme tantrums, etc.

Our "sensory system" works together with the brain to send signals to
tell us what is going on, what to do with our bodies and how to adjust
to a situation. If these "signals" are not working cooperatively, the
messages get mixed up. To complicate the situation, it is not that the
sensory system is necessarily delayed or malfunctioning globally, but
rather some areas are "typical", some are "over-sensitive" or actually
connecting at higher frequencies and some are simply effected by the
lack of cooperative "connections" , creating scatter skills.

I hope this helps and did not cause more confusion! It probably
sparked more questions. OT: Love your blog...find every outlet for
release and support you can! Your dedication, support and love for your
child IS helping him!

Kari Christiansen
____________ _________ _____

results of the SID evaluation

This is not the entire evaluation just the major parts of it
Hunter scored in the definite difference range for auditory, visual, bestibular, touch adn oral sensory processing with probable difference for multisensory processing. Hunter scored in the definite differnce for sensory processing related to endurand/tone, modulation related to body position, modulation of movement affecting activity level and movement. Hunter scored a probable difference with modulation of sensory input affecting emotional responses. Hes scored difinite differnce for modulation of vestibular input affecting emotional responses and activity level, emotion and social responses. Hunter scored in the probable differnce for behavioral outcomes of sensory processing. Hunter scores on sensory factors included definite differnce for sensory seeking, emotional reactive, low endurans/tone, oral sensory sensitivity, and attention distractibility, and poor registration; he scored in the typical performance for sensory sensitivity, sedentary, and fine motor perceptual. So, I'm not sure what this exactly all means as of yet. Once I find out I'll post it.

Mid Jan KAL

I finally got it done and I also got my Blog set up, thanks to all those that helped with that. So here is a picture of the Jan Mid-Month dishcloth KAL. cabled cloth. Thanks Andi for all your hard work, It was tons of fun.

Picture of Hunter at his preshcool Thanksgiving feast

quick overview of SID and intro to Hunter

SID otherwise known as Sensory Integration Dysfunction is becoming more common today. So what is SID. SID is where the Neurotransmitters in the brain don't work properly thus causeing miscommunication in the brain sensory processing system. some examples that are commenly seen are. A child who does not like to have his hair washed or cut. the brain is telling the child that these everyday tasks are painful. there can also be delays in development, speach, ect. another way to explain it is a child with SID is like a trafic jam in the brain. There are many reasons that are believed to be linked to SID but at this time I will not get into them. this is just a brief explanation so that I can introduce you to Hunter and explain what the first 4 1/2 years have been like. This blog is by no means a way to answer your questions or diagnose your child. it is a way for me to document Hunters progress.

So I would consider Hunter's pregnancy and birth to be uneventfull, he was exactly 2 weeks early and weight 6 pounds 11.4 ounze on 6/11/2002. He did have the umbilical cord wraped around his neck once and the Dr. had to use what's called a mityvac to help get him out. From birth to 5 months Hunter was a happy child. He had numerous ear infections and required putting tubes in his ears at 5 months. He was a quiet child that loved to have his face rubbed. 6mo-1 year. Hunter had feeding issues. He never seemed to be able to keep anything in his stomach, he had a weak cardiac sphincter and would projectile vomit after every feeding. On Hunter's 1 year birthday he developed a high fever and was diagnosed with yet another ear infection. Shortly after turning one he started to pull his hair out. In one months time he was almost bald so I shaved the rest of it off. His Dr. didn't seem to think anything of it, but I knew that at this point something was differnt. Hunter continued to pull hair although it was doll hair and horse hair. At first he would eat it but as of today he just holds it in his hand and sucks his thumb. He will not go outside the house without his "fuzzy". by about 18 months he was throwing horrible tantrums, He would not sleep, eat, or let you put clothes on him. He had a ok vocabulary for an 18 month old. Around this same time the pediatrition thought that Hunters Anterior fontenells had closed and fused prematurely. So He had lots of xrays ect and determined that they did not fuse, just overlaped. By 2 he stoped talking and the fits, tantrums, rages worsened. Hunter could not communicate with us and he did not understand a thing we were saying to him. Hunter would wake up in the night screaming, crying, kicking and biting because we had no idea what he wanted. So finally at 2 1/2 we were able to get a special education teacher to come into our house and work with him for 6 months. We were taugh some sign language and hunter slowly started to have a way to communicate again with us. These fits, tantrums, ranges continued until Hunter was 3 1/2 when he finally was fully communicating with us aging. Potty training was impossible and finally done shortly after Hunter turned 4 this past June. Some of the other things that Hunter has issues with, sleep, eating, tires easily- he has no mucsle tone, bites still, hits, throws, verbally not nice to everyone, won't wear clothes with out a battle. Socks are totally out of the question, any type of suttle change in the house or everyday life throws him in a spin and a tantrum occurs. Hunter is currently in preschool and does fairly well except he tells me that he hates it becasue of all the loud kids, he loves to spin, get messy, bounce, jump. He is what I call my little tansmainian devil, my tornado, He destroys not plays with toys. So this past tuesday Hunter was finally evaluated for SID and today I will get a copy of the evaluation. So we will see what they say and recommend for Hunter.