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
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