I am new to this forum and SO thankful to find it! I have a 4 year old little boy with SPD. He is a sensory seeker, mostly tactile and smell but is affected in some degree in every sense. He was diagnosed about 9 months ago and we are currently in OT weekly. I am trying to soak in information in order to help him. We were doing better for a while in regards to meltdowns and setbacks but in the past 3 weeks, it seems that we have taken a step backwards, although I am not sure why. My question today is regarding cold temps.
I took A to swim yesterday at a heated indoor pool. He LOVES to swim as long as the water is not in his face. He was very excited about going and happily got in the water and was playing great for about 20 minutes. He got out of the pool to get a toy and immediately started to get very whiny and was showing signs of a meltdown so I tried asking him to tell me what was wrong. He is delayed in speech but not a lot so generally I can get the point by process of elimination. He was starting to cry and scream loudly so I took him to the dressing room. I sat with him for a few minutes thinking the quiet would calm him down. It didn't. He said he wanted to swim so we tried one more time and after 5 minutes in the water, he was at full meltdown stage. So I took him to change his clothes to go home still not sure what had caused this. He was shaking, recoiling from any touch and it seemed to be very painful to him as I took off his wet clothes. I asked him if he was cold and he sobbed and said that he was. I asked him if it hurt and he again, screaming and sobbing, said that it did. After I got his dry clothes on, he did stop screaming but still did not want me to hold or touch him for quite a while. It seemed as if he was almost in a daze as he was turning the sink water on and off for a couple of minutes while I dried and changed. After it was all over and we were home, I tried to talk to him about what had happened but he was unable to tell me (not sure if it was the speech delay or he just didn't really know). Anyway my question is does this make sense to you guys and can you tell me what he might have been feeling and if cold is painful to those with SPD?