本帖最後由 jolalee 於 20-9-4 11:05 編輯
Sorry everyone, I know this sharing is a bit off topic from "International School", but given it's originally written in English I don't know where else to put it on EduKingdom. I feel it's important to parents of toddler/kindergarten kids to spot a problem before it's too late, hence I took the time to summarise my experience in the past 8 years into this article. I hope it'll be a good read and helpful to fellow parents. 讀中文較暢順的，我已放了翻譯版於 特殊教育, 叫『在迷團中成長』. Just hope this is helpful for parents who needs it.
Growing Up with Mysteries - Dealing with Sensory Processing Disorder
Like any good old mystery, there’s something off, but no one can pin a finger on it. Yes, not even now -- not fully. Our kiddo was born full term, with average height and average weight. The doctors did the standard checkups, and they all told us he was a healthy boy. Yes, a cesarean section was needed. The fetus was never positioned properly, I could always feel his head lodged near my stomach, perhaps due to the nuchal cord. With modern medicine these were non-issues. The doctors were not worried, and so shouldn’t we. Right?
The End of the Beginning
My first suspicion started in the playroom. I noticed other toddlers didn’t walk by twisting their hips. Our kiddo did. Given he was under age 2 at the time, our chiropractor friend recommended a check up with an osteo. The osteopathic therapist informed us that Kiddo’s hip was twisted and so was his neck. The torticollis was very mild so the doctors didn’t notice it. Oh, and he has Sensory Processing Disorder.
Sensory what? I tried to look it up online as per her recommendation, but I couldn’t find the correlation between torticollis and sensory issues (that was 2012; there is much more info on this now). I went to my son’s pediatrician and he told me to ignore it given SPD is not recognized as a distinct medical diagnosis. I ensured Kiddo’s spinal issues were fixed, and for the next half a year believed that’s all I needed to do.
If you have never believed in real life prophecies, the following may be a bit freaky, well, at least for me it was. The osteo told me Kiddo will become irritated, and will have social problems with other children. She said a number of things, and each of them came true in the months to follow. He was cranky and restless. He always never slept well and would wake up with the slightest sound. To my disbelief, once he beat up a fellow student in drawing class in front of the teachers (he pushed the boy off his chair and started to kick him). Perhaps Kiddo was just going through Terrible Two and regular behaviour correction would do, but I didn’t take my chances and looked up a child development center with occupational therapy for him. I’m glad I did.
To me, Sensory Processing Disorder started off as a vast maze shrouded in thick mist, with an array of issues including sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, vestibular, proprioception and interoception (yes I looked that up online). Each child may have different issues and they may be seeking one and avoiding another. The time investment was lengthy too. I know parents who stopped taking their children to therapy as they did not see results after several months. I would’ve given up too if it wasn’t for an observant mom of a fellow playroom buddy, who noticed that my boy ‘seems like a different person’ after undergoing OT for half a year. She noticed that Kiddo was much calmer and his “motorized” movements were gone. It took an outsider who doesn’t see Kiddo everyday to spot these minute changes. I was glad things were looking up and believed that the mystery was solved for good as long as we continued with OT training. Little did we know, that was only the end of the beginning.
A Spaghetti of Issues
Upon entering primary school, Kiddo’s reading and writing skills fell behind even with sufficient learning support. This boy had been read to every night since he was a baby, had every opportunity to learn and was well loved by his family and friends. The only possible reason the teachers could tell with the learning difficulty was attention issues. Kiddo loves people but he was never fond of paperwork. His self esteem was slowly dwindling as well. As soon as he reached age 7, when he could be properly diagnosed, we took him for a full psychoeducational assessment. I was braced for an ADHD diagnosis, but the result presented more questions than answers.
Kiddo was “ruled out” for: specific learning disability in reading, specific learning disability in writing, mild depression (!) and attention deficit. From my knowledge, “rule out” meant he exhibited the symptoms but there was not enough evidence to make a diagnosis. This was a bigger mind warp than his “sensory what?” problem. The plot thickens.
The seasoned psychologist reasoned out his spaghetti of issues this way: Kiddo probably has some form of dyslexia. Given his high IQ, he noticed his inferior performance in school, which led to mild depression, and the depressive mood caused the lack of attention in class. So the root cause could be dyslexia, but no one was certain. I would need to find out from a centre that treats dyslexia. Given we had been through a colorful string of diagnosis in private centres, I’ve decided to seek help from public health care. Yes, it may take longer, but I had a feeling that they may be more objective.
Words Clash
While waiting to be diagnosed, I chanced upon a chat with the admin staff from a previous learning centre which failed to help Kiddo with his writing abilities. Out of good will, I explained to her that Kiddo may have dyslexia, thinking it may help their tutors gain experience in spotting kids with learning issues. Surprisingly, the lady told me that another student of theirs had similar issues, and the problem was fixed by wearing this special pair of glasses.
I was skeptical, of course. When Kiddo was younger, I did notice that he wasn’t registering the text I taught him, so I took him to an opthamologist for check up at the right timing (a few months before he turned 4). Through the years the eye doctors repeatedly told me that Kiddo’s eyesight was fine, with 20/20 vision. I decided to pursue this new lead anyhow, and that’s how I learned about Irlen Syndrome. It did seem to describe what Kiddo was going through.
After doing a little test to confirm that Kiddo would read and write slower on white paper compared with a colored (darker) paper, I asked my then 7 year old if words on paper seem blurry for him (for the lack of a better term). He said no. Oh good, but then he said ‘the words clash together’, which was a bullseye description for the syndrome.
I felt devastated for not being able to spot it earlier, but then, Kiddo didn’t realize words don’t normally skip or move around either. The best way to describe what Kiddo was experiencing was a specific visual processing problem, where the normal amount of light was too much for his brain to handle. As the Irlen syndrome diagnostician put it, ‘There’s nothing wrong with your eyes Kiddo, it’s just your brain playing tricks on you.’ (Yes, that evening I had to soothe my son and assured him that his brain was mostly fine)
It really took all our detective skills (and some good luck) to piece all the clues together. The results from public health care came back and confirmed that Kiddo does not have dyslexia (they are rechecking for ADHD now). The visual problem was Sensory Processing Disorder all along, a very specific stream, which none of Kiddo’s array of OT trainers spotted. With the most possible culprit caught, we went on to find the right persons to address it.
Irlen syndrome is also not recognized as a distinct medical diagnosis and has no cure other than filtered lenses and colored paper. However, a good behavioural optometrist was able to help improve his ‘cross eye’ problem through vision training. Hence began the most turbulent half a year my son and I experienced with daily home training. This was worse than getting my little guy to sit down to do math or writing. He was forced to read out tiny characters through different lenses, when text on paper was already his greatest enemy. I even needed to decline some work projects, putting my career on hold, in order to make it happen.
It was all worth it.
The Beginning of the End?
Slowly but surely, Kiddo was reading longer and writing neater. He was able to enjoy books by himself and didn’t need to be read to as much. After failing over and over as a young child, Kiddo needs an abundance of time and opportunities to build up his self confidence. It will come, and we’re making it happen.
We continue to give him ample exercise opportunities and sensory input that he craves. Occasionally we go back to vision training as a review. He may still have mild ADHD as well, or remnants of SPD that exhibit itself as attention deficit. The mystery continues, but layer by layer we are peeling them away, and reveal that headstrong, cheeky, fun loving achiever that my son has always been and continues to become.
by Sherlock Mom
| 
發表於 20-9-4 11:04
