Merry Christmas from Chief

Chief and I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

May Santa bring you all the bones and squeaky toys your hearts desire (a personal note from Chief).

Happy Holidays

Hey, Mom..Is That My New Toy???

Just a Swingin'

In Sensory Integration treatment (SI) for children with sensory processing dysfunction, we often use swinging on different mediums as ways to stimulate the vestibular-proprioceptive system. Vestibular processing gives our central nervous system information about our position in space, balance, and postural control. Often, children who have difficulty with vestibular processing have low muscle tone throughout their body, which means their overall endurance is low for activity (although strength for short duration muscle activity may be adequate). We often use swings, such as this platform swing, in SI to address these areas of function. The child may be positioned in standing/sitting/quadruped on the swing and the swing moved in different planes of movement (for example linear or orbital) depending on the child's needs.

Sometimes, the swing can be used to help calm children who are over stimulated. Linear and rhythmical movements tend to have a calming effect on us. Often times, if I have a child who needs to calm themselves a bit, I will place them on the swing and move it slowly. (Think of how many mothers have used rocking chairs to soothe a child...same concept).

In this video, I am teaching Chief to get used to the moving platform swing in preparation for him sitting on the swing with one of the kids. My goal is for him to be comfortable with being on the swing independent of me and the child either sitting or laying with him.

This is only the 3rd training session on the swing...and this was after having a week off from training. Shows you how quickly Chief has learned to trust me and enjoys his training. He really has an enormous amount of trust and self esteem that has developed through his training.

Tammy

Chief....Sit on That Child :)

No, Braydon is not in trouble and Chief is doing what he's been asked to do.

Our clinic works with many children who have sensory processing dysfunction. Many of these children have difficulty regulating their sensory systems, which means that all of the sensory information that they receive in their central nervous system is processed incorrectly, usually resulting in behavioral and/or emotional reactions. A child can be hyper or hypo sensitive to sensory information. One way that we help our kids to regulate their systems better is to provide opportunities for calming their systems. What I mean by this is that we provide the child with activities that will help the child receive sensory information to the joints in their body, which has a calming effect. This is usually done through deep pressure, such as given them a bear hug or providing joint compressions.

This photograph illustrates a way that the dog can be incorporated into sensory integration therapy to provide deep pressure for calming. Normally, the therapist would be laying over the child. The pressure is dispersed across the surface area of the bean bag chairs and provides pressure to more areas of the child's body.

Chief has now been taught to help with this very important SI activity...and quite frankly, he likes it!!! Braydon commented that he could feel the vibration of Chief's panting through the bean bag...and that he thought it felt good on his body.

Since teaching Chief to do this, we have used it with several of our children who were needing some calming strategies, all with a positive response following this technique.

Looks like Chief has a new behavior to add to his "toolbox".

Tammy