Tactile Defensiveness Occupational Therapy Begins
Wednesday’s occupational therapy appointment was pretty straight forward. She did some basic tests to figure out where Forest is developmentally (kid is super smart, in case you were wondering) and then I changed his shirt so that she could see how he reacts. She showed me how to use this small medical brush (looks exactly like the kind they use in the hospitals on newborn babies) to brush his arms, back and legs. It’s not a light touch but instead a very firm one, which is good because he’s so ticklish (a sign of the sensory disorder as it turns out). She also showed me how to do joint compressions on his wrists, elbows and shoulders. His leg joints can be compressed by having him jump up and down.
I am now doing this every 2 hours, trying to get in 6-8 sessions a day. He seems to really like the brushing and enjoys helping and doing it to other people. I am just being conscious not to interrupt his play or otherwise make it feel like something he “has to do”. I don’t want him to attach any kind of negativity to the experience and then become resistive. Even Logan is learning how to do it, which again is pretty cute.
Forest’s case is so mild that we are only doing the OT once a week for now and she said we may move quickly to once every two weeks. I’m curious to see how quickly we see change. The OT’s challenge to Forest was to wear a regular shirt to his appointment next week. He’s only been wearing his pj shirts turned inside out after sleeping in them all night for the past few weeks. Him putting on a regular tshirt again would be a huge step. I’m concerned that he has a lot of anxiety about putting them on though because of his previous discomfort coupled with our reactions of “you have to wear a shirt!”. I hope that our switch to “hugging it out” and otherwise going with the flow and no pressure about clothes will eventually win him over so that he feels comfortable enough to just try again.
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