Sensory-based activities may help some children with autism stay focused on a task.
Children with autism may have sensory integration problems that make it hard to focus on school work and come up with the right answer. Some therapists use sensory activities that may help children with these problems. For example, children may swing slowly on a swing or bounce quickly on an exercise ball. Usually the children enjoy the sensory activities very much. The researchers wanted to find out if a reward system would motivate children to give correct answers to some questions. Three children (ages 6-7) were offered a choice of sensory activities to do before a session. That activity would then be their reward for answering 12 correct answers. The session started when the therapist asked the child to open their workbook. As their task, children were then asked to identify pictures of community helpers and safety. The children earned a token for every correct answer. They needed to earn 12 tokens in order to get the reward of going on the swing or the exercise ball. The researchers added an interspersal procedure by mixing questions that the child clearly knew the answer to with others that they might need to learn the answer to. The sensory activities as rewards helped two of the three children give correct answers when asked to identify what was in the picture. The interspersal procedure also helped motivate children to give the correct answers.
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Just to snuggle
Nov 28, 2007 by AnonymousThomas has made the transition from Thanksgiving break back to school without any serious side-effects. He asked almost every day of the break if he was going to school that day which makes me think that he wants to go to school. He was never upset when I told him “No,” so maybe it was just his way of preparing mentally.
Against Thomas’ wishes, I am going to school on Friday to make pizza with the class. We’re “Family of the Week” this week and we’re asked to send in family pictures, decorate a poster that’s all about Thomas and maybe come into school to make a snack. I came up with this pizza project which will involve smashing and shaping dough (good sensory activity) squirting pizza sauce and sprinkling cheese. Some of the other suggestions included bringing family members with special talents (musical instruments, etc.) to class for a demonstration, bringing in treasured family mementos or bringing in a favorite book to read. I sent in some pictures on Monday but I couldn’t think of any other “treasured mementos” that I’d trust with Thomas and a bunch of four year-olds. So tomorrow night I’ll be making pizza dough for fourteen mini-pizzas. Both Thomas’ teacher and I have been trying to explain to Thomas that I’ll be at school on Friday and we’ll be making pizza. I hope that because pizza is involved, Thomas will be a little more enthusiastic about seeing me at school than he was on Halloween.
Thanksgiving went very nicely. The kids were a little loud and high-spirited, but they did actually sit at the dinner table for more than a few minutes. Thomas really liked the turkey and Hayley ate a lot of mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. They both ate a ton of crescent rolls, of course. That was the main staple of their Thanksgiving meal. I’m actually very surprised at how open Thomas has been lately to trying new foods. Just tonight he ate some asparagus! He even said that he liked it! It really has been great that Thomas eats vegetables lately. I was beginning to worry that he was going to get rickets or something. Even if I’m trying to scarf down a Lean Cuisine steak and cheddar panini, Thomas asks to try some of it. He’ll take a bite and say, “Mmm, that’s yummy! I like it!” We can tell if he really liked it by whether or not he asks for more. For instance, he did chew and swallow the asparagus but he didn’t ask for more. One stalk of asparagus is better than none, I suppose.
The kids have been very excited about Christmas – much more excited than ever before. Both of them are open to the idea of visiting and asking Santa for presents this year, which is something we didn’t do last year because Santa was scary then. They probably felt that way because we let them watch “A Christmas Story” with that less-than-ideal Santa at Higbee’s Department Store. Thomas wants “a car to drive.” Yeah, and I want another garage to park it in! Ask Santa for that! Hayley wants “dollies,” despite the fact that she has quite a few already. I put up our Christmas decorations on Monday – everything but the tree. The kids dance around and screech, “It’s Christmastime! It’s Christmastime!” They’re acting how I feel! A very deep and profound love of Christmas has been passed down to me from my ancestors and it’s my duty to pass it on to my kids. They’re catching on, it seems. You can’t fight biology.
I’ve been wondering about the sleep study thing again. I’m worried that the neurologist is going to yell at me when she finds out that we cancelled it. I’m just a little confused about why we have to do it now that Thomas sleeps in his bed all night. True, we did see that odd frontal-lobe spikes on the first and second EEGs, but will a sleep study clear that up? On the physician’s order for the study, the doctor listed “possible polysomnia” as the reason for having the test performed. I’m not a doctor, but “poly” means “many,” and “somnia” means “sleep,” right? So “many-sleeps” – he wakes frequently in the night. What does that have to do with frontal lobe spikes? And even if he does have polysomnia, what is this doctor going to do about it? I know other kids with polysomnia and the doctor basically said, “Your son wakes up ninety times every night. We don’t know why. Maybe he’ll grow out of it. Have a nice day.” I’m figuring that the doctor will want to see Thomas again eventually and will probably continue prescribing the Clonidine contingent on our seeing her every three months or something. Thomas asked us yesterday to leave his bedroom light on so that he doesn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to turn it on. And he did come into our room very early this morning and when I asked him why, he said, “Mommy, I just wanted to snuggle with you.” Hmm. Maybe I don't mind so much after all.