My almost-four-year-old son started OT a month ago and he seems to be doing much worse. In fact, right before he started I nearly canceled all together because he was doing so well. I thought we'd turned a corner and maybe he really had outgrown his meltdowns and inflexibility.

I've talked with his OT about it and she is taking things very slowly with him so we can get the best possible sense of what might be setting him off. She also said it could be a side effect of the brain reorganizing itself as he learns to process the things he does in therapy. The day after his first therapy session was maybe his worst day at preschool ever (and he has had some doozies!). Things are not improving and his daycare has asked us to come in for a meeting. He hadn't hit or been overly physical with another kid in class since well before Christmas and in the last two weeks he's had incidents every day.

Is this something any of you have experienced with your kids? Was it due to something that was being done in therapy that needed to be managed differently or was it just an adjustment thing that settled down with time? How long was it before you noticed OT making a positive difference for your child?

Crikey, sounds like a very puzzling situation for all of you!

We are just starting out with a proper OT programe so cant tell you if we have hit hurdles with it yet.

However I can tell you that my son cannot cope for Jan Feb March every single year, I only noticed it was a pattern this year but lookingn back he is worse the same time every year so is going to be evaluated for SAD. He also has a cycle of behaviour, aggression, emotional, happy then back to the start again. he used to cycle within a day when he was tiny and as hes got older the cycle is getting longer.

If there is 1 thing I have learned ts never settle when they appear to be "doing ok" - use these times to really hammer in the therapy when they are more willing and open to it and always expect tomorrow to be the day they need support again.

Hope you get some help with this and someone can explain why this is happening. Its such a constant worry isnt it.

Not with my kids, I don´t have any, but with myself. At first my problems became worse. Much worse!! Because I´m an adult it took much longer before I noticed any improvement. You would have to think in months for a little bit of progress. The people around me seriously doubted my OT. Processing all the stuff I learned was and is a lot of work and caused/causes big problems in my head.

Owensmum, my little guy is Owen, too. The winter months are definitely harder on all of us, but it's been a mild winter where we are and now we've set the clocks back, so I hope the extra sunshine and warmer weather will help cheer us.

InsideAut, thanks for your insight. It's very helpful to hear from someone who has been through it and can explain how it actually feels. Obviously, my son is too young to really understand/articulate why he feels what he feels. Thanks for shedding a little light on what he's likely going through. I'd love to hear more so I can try to help him process it.

We will keep plugging along and hopefully we'll see some progress in the months ahead.

Are there specific things you would like to know?

I guess just, how does it feel while you're processing all the new things you learned? Is there a physical discomfort or is it just your headspace that's all out of whack? Was there anything you wished the people around you would or wouldn't do for/to you during that time? Is there anything that would have helped you cope while you got adjusted to therapy?

The last few days have been much better with him and for the last three school days he's done a little better every day. I hope he'll stay on the upswing. His diagnosis isn't very severe and he's very functional everywhere but school, where he is extremely overstimulated. But he has many years of school ahead of him, so I really want to make sure we give him every possible tool to succeed there. He is incredibly bright, but his difficult behavior tends to overshadow that with his teachers.

You could say both. For example: I learned that being touched could be pleasant by massage. That meant a big mess in my head, a lot of panic, anger en extreme fear, and my skin could feel like buring for hours (in the beginning even 1,5 days).

What I need and needed most was understandig and patience. That people leave me be and give me some space. That they don't push my sensory buttons by touching me or talk much for example. I needed that people believed in me an my OT. That we could do this.

(03-13-2012, 10:17 AM)Lexicon Wrote: The last few days have been much better with him and for the last three school days he's done a little better every day. I hope he'll stay on the upswing. His diagnosis isn't very severe and he's very functional everywhere but school, where he is extremely overstimulated. But he has many years of school ahead of him, so I really want to make sure we give him every possible tool to succeed there. He is incredibly bright, but his difficult behavior tends to overshadow that with his teachers.

Have you ever considered homeschooling? My very bright SPD kid can't learn in a conventional classroom - too much (noise, motion, lights) happening for him to process. Learning at home, in a cyber school, he is an A+ student, took his first college level course at 11. If he were in a regular school, he'd be too busy just trying to cope to learn anything.

Thanks, InsideAut. I will try to make sure I'm cutting him some extra slack.

Marci, I don't think homeschooling is a good option for our family for a lot of reasons, most of which have to do with my own lack of ability as an effective teacher and general lack of patience. I wouldn't be at all confident that I could take that on successfully. However, we are planning to have me become a stay-at-home mom this fall, which will allow Owen to go to part-time preschool and half-day kindergarten. I think scaling back on classroom time will be good for him. He'll have the next two years to mature, do his OT and hopefully when he has to re-enter the classroom on a full-time basis he will have more ways to cope effectively. If he still struggles in first grade we will have to see what our options are, but for now I'm optimistic.

His OT introduced listening therapy last night and said his initial reaction to it was fantastic. She's on vacation next week, but the week after we will be taking the equipment home with us to do that 30 min/day for two weeks and see how it goes.

Hi Lexicon,
How is Owen doing now? If you're still not making progress I would suggest changing OT's if that's possible - I have found that some OT's only have a bare bones understanding of SPD, because they tend to specialise in equipment, or motor therapy, or rely on the child having an understanding of their 'level' and be able to self regulate - often this doesn't happen until they're much older - and if there are other developmental issues, sometimes not at all. The 'How is my engine running' program for example relies heavily on self regulation and awareness, it doesn't work for all kids. Some OT's only know one program, it's not your OT's fault, it's a wide field and SPD as a specialty isn't well understood by many professionals.
http://mommypoppins.com/ny-kids/99-senso...any-child/
There are some great strategies for home here.