The Sensory Processing Diet E-Book

Chynna Laird

• Herausgeber: Loving Healing Press
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 368

Beschreibung

As a mom of a newly diagnosed child with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), I relentlessly sought experts in SPD, as well as top nutritionists, biopsychologists, and neurologists. I figured that if I understood the major functions of the brain, and how it's supposed to take in, process and respond to stimulation, I could discover how SPD interferes with these functions. Understanding the whole picture - the combination of body, brain and nutritional health - led me to embrace the "Sensory Diet." In this book, I share the keys of a well-balanced nutritional diet and the activities and exercises that truly work. Use the resources in this book to create a whole picture of your own child's conditions and customize a Sensory Diet for him/her.
"If you're the parent, teacher, relative or friend of a sensory kid, The Sensory Processing Diet will give you unique insight into his or her world. Reading it was a breath of fresh air, as I could relate to so many of her parenting struggles and found her recommended interventions to be both doable and helpful."
--CAMERON KLEIMO, sensory mom
"Chynna Laird has written a sensational book about a little known disorder, but one that is becoming increasingly more identified in children. As a child psychologist, I found the book to be interesting, informative and complete. I recommend it highly to parents and professionals. I loved it."
--LAURIE ZELINGER, PhD, ABPP, RPT-S, board certified psychologist, author of Please Explain "Anxiety" to Me
"I work with many children in play therapy that also experience sensory issues. The Sensory Diet gives an in-depth look at contributors to SPD, what types of treatments are available and adjustments families can make so that a child with SPD can cope in life in a way that he/she hasn't understood before. I wholeheartedly recommend it to therapists and parents."
----JILL OSBORNE, EDS, LPC, CPCS, RPTS, author of Sam Feels Better Now!
Chynna Laird - is a mother of four, a freelance writer, blogger, editor and award-winning author. Her passion is helping children and families living with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), mental and/or emotional struggles and other special needs. She's authored two children's books, two memoirs, a parent-to-parent resource book, a Young Adult novella, a Young Adult paranormal/suspense novel series, two New Adult contemporary novels and an adult suspense/thriller. Website: www.chynnalairdauthor.ca

Leseprobe

The Sensory Processing Diet

One Mom's Path of Creating Brain, Body and Nutritional Health for Children with SPD

Chynna Laird

Loving Healing Press

Ann Arbor, MI

The Sensory Processing Diet: One Mom's Path of Creating Brain, Body and Nutritional Health for Children with SPD

Copyright © 2020 by Chynna Laird

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Laird, Chynna T., 1970- author.

Title: The sensory processing diet : one mom's path of creating brain, body and nutritional health for children with SPD / Chynna Laird.

Description: Ann Arbor, MI : Loving Healing Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “The Sensory Diet is not just about nutrition, it prescribes a complete program to address all of the needs of a child growing up with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) including exercises and evaluation methods for exteroceptors (visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile senses), proprioceptors (vestibular, proprioceptive) and interoceptors. The holistic approach is required because SPD can affect almost every aspect of the nervous system”-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020027613 (print) | LCCN 2020027614 (ebook) | ISBN 9781615995219 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781615995226 (hardback) | ISBN 9781615995233 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781615995233 (kindle edition)

Subjects: LCSH: Sensory integration dysfunction in children--Alternative treatment--Popular works. | Sensory disorders in children--Patients--Diet therapy--Popular works.

Classification: LCC RJ496.S44 L36 2020 (print) | LCC RJ496.S44 (ebook) | DDC 618.92/8--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027613

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027614

Published by Loving Healing Press

5145 Pontiac Trail

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

www.LHPress.com

[email protected]

Tollfree (USA/CAN/PR): 888-761-6268

FAX: [phone]

Distributed by Ingram Group (USA/CAN/AU), Bertram Books (UK/EU), New Leaf (USA)

Contents

Foreword by Shane Steadman

Foreword by Kelly Dorfman, M.S., L.N.D.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Your Child’s Brain and Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)

The Nervous System – Our Body’s Messenger System

How Does SPD Interfere With the Brain‘s Job?

Understanding Dysfunction in Sensory Integration

What Causes SPD?

Is SPD A ‘Real’ Diagnosis?

Chapter 2: The Sensory Systems: Exteroceptors, Proprioceptors and Interoceptors

The Three Basic Parts of the Sensory System

Exteroceptors: How Does the World Feel?

Proprioceptors: Coordinating Ourselves in the World

Proprioceptive

Interoceptors: What’s Happening on the Inside?

Chapter 3: So, What Exactly is the Sensory Diet?

Becoming ‘Sensory Smart’

The Basics of the Sensory Diet

Who’s Who in the Sensory Diet?

The Nutritionist: Feeding the Hungry Brain.

Parents: The Glue of the Team

How is the Diet Set Up?

The Wonderful World of Alternative Therapies

Chapter 4: Sensory Integration through Play

Play Therapy vs. Sensory Integration Therapy

Play Therapy: A Good First Step

Chapter 5: Exercising Your Child's Exteroceptors

Exercises for the Auditory System

Exercises for the Olfactory System

Exercises for the Gustatory System and for Oral Stimulation

Exercises for the Visual System

Exercises for the Tactile System

Chapter 6: Exercising Your Child's Proprioceptors

Exercises for the Vestibular System

Exercises for the Proprioceptive System

Chapter 7: Feeding the Hungry Brain

Why Won’t My Child Eat?

What’s My Child’s Brain Hungry For?

How Can I Get My Child to Eat?

Different Eating Perspectives, Same Vision

Help for “Leaky Gut”

Chapter 8: Helping Your Sensational Child Succeed in School

Is Public School the Best Choice?

Looking For a Sensory-Safe School

What Information Do I Need to Give, and to Whom?

What Are IEP and 504 Accomodation Plans and Does My Child Need One?

Tips for Teachers

Chapter 9: Helping Siblings, Other Family Members and Friends Be Supportive

The ‘Couple’ Part of Parenting

Sensational Lessons for Extended Family

The Sensory-Sensitive Child in the Outside World

Tackling the Touchy Subjects

Eating and Eliminating

Appendix I: Interviews with Experts on Gluten-Free / Casein-Free Diets

Q&A With Krysten Hager

Q&A With Dana Laake

Appendix II: Good Recipes for a Healthy Brain

Appendix III: A Sensory Diet Success Story -- A Parent's Perspective

Suggested Reading and References

About the Author

Index

Also by Chynna Laird

Foreword by Shane Steadman

It is estimated that one out of six children deal with some type of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Yet, it is still one of the more unrecognized issues that plague our children as they try to function throughout their daily activities at home, school and with peers. Chynna Laird’s book, The Sensory Processing Diet: One Mom's Path of Creating Brain, Body and Nutritional Health for Children with SPD presents a simplistic, informative and extremely useful guide for parents who are frustrated and struggle with the daily routines of their children with SPD. Unfortunately, these routines are met with sensory integration disturbances (feeding, behavior and playing with others). There is now a book from a parent to a parent.

I talk regularly with parents and work with kids who have some type of developmental delay. Besides developing nutritional and neurological treatment plans for these kids, my staff and I spend much of our time educating parents and providing resources that support them on the their difficult journey. Chynna Laird’s book is a great resource and offers the tools necessary for parents to deal with the day-to-day struggle. When I read the book for the first time, I was impressed to see a list of what parents can do for their children at home as well as how to interact and engage their kids in a school setting. It was also exciting to see the many websites that parents can reference and get even more ideas that help. Equipping and empowering the parents is important in making any treatment plan successful.

Many parents who seek a diagnosis of their children often feel intimidated by the name of the condition. It almost seems like a sentencing of sorts. They often think to themselves, “Now what?” and go from practitioner to practitioner looking for some kind of answer to their diagnosis. Or, they search the Internet and are frightened by what they read. This book is very valuable, as it gives an overview of how the brain’s function, therapies for the brain (the sensory diet), and resources for parents to gain more information.

The first section of the book gives a simplified and easy-to-understand description of how the brain works. I find that many people have no idea what really goes on inside our heads, and sometimes they are not sure if they want to find out. Chynna’s explanations of how the brain communicates with the body through concepts like the ‘VP of Operations’, ‘Departments’ and ‘Bicycle Messengers’ help to make sense of what your child is experiencing.

The next section provides creative ideas for how to interact with and help your child who is suffering with SPD. It is amazing how much parents can do with and for their children. At-Home Strategies for Managing Sensory Processing Disorder is full of ideas for parents that are simple to use and provide great interaction with their children, thereby creating a bond. Once a parent gets the concepts of interacting while doing therapy, the possibilities become enormous. One of my favorite and easy-to-incorporate games from the book is called, ‘Fun With Boxes’. Many kids like playing with boxes and for a parent to get inside a box and play with their kids is a great therapy tool as well as a great bonding experience.

Another section gives parents helpful hints when working with schools. Often parents comment on how hard it is to have a kid with SPD in school. I find that teachers are willing to help, but they often are unsure of what to do. By sharing ideas and ways to communicate with schools and different groups, this book can help relieve some of the frustration for parents, teachers and students.

At the end of the book, Chynna provides many websites and resources to help parents continue the learning process. These resources include educational material, recipes, websites and even ideas for toys. A great recipe in the book to try is the gluten-free chicken nuggets. Many parents think that getting their kids to eat something healthy is impossible. If you find recipes that taste great and make your kids feel like they’re eating the same things as all of the other kids, it becomes easier than you might think.

I highly recommend this book both to parents who are just beginning their journey and to those who feel like they’re on a never-ending treadmill. It is great to see a book written for the point of view of a parent who has gone through the struggles, since she can relate with what readers are going through. I hope that you enjoy the book as much as I did and use the many resources along your journey.

Shane Steadman, DC

Dr. Shane Steadman is one of a small handful of chiropractic neurologists in the state of Colorado and is an expert in peripheral neuropathy. He is a sought-after speaker and expert, regularly appearing in the media and is the co-owner of Mountain Health Chiropractic & Neurology Center, LLC.

Foreword by Kelly Dorfman, M.S., L.N.D.

As a nutritionist, I am very excited to be writing the Foreword to a book about Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Over the last 15 years, I have traveled around the country pounding the metaphoric drum about the connection between nutritional issues and SPD problems. In my experience, often the sensory system cannot be fixed without improving the nutritional environment in which it operates. Conversely, picky eaters can have sensory problems that need to be addressed before the diet with improve.

More than 20 years ago I started to see children who were developing normally and then suddenly stopped. One child was speaking two languages at his second birthday and a month later was non-verbal and diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. At the time, autism was thought to be a condition a child was born with. There was no recognized diagnosis to explain regression at 18 months. Parents were told they had just thought the child was talking, or they were just dismissed as delusional about their offspring. How the world has changed!

My philosophy is that the parent is always right until proven otherwise. It was immensely disturbing to watch these parents suffer and have no ideas what to do. By the fourth case (in one month), I decided that I would either find answers or make them up!

Children who have sensory issues tend to be more vulnerable to having nutritional and/or digestive issues. If children start with sensory issues (as in premature infants, for example), their experiences are different from ours. The primitive nervous system needs to be fully operational for a child to read and interpret information accurately. What others see as pleasure, the child may experience as pain. When there is a lot of information, they may not know what to focus on.

Eating is such a sensory banquet. Everything you can think of that involves the sensory system is involved in the eating process: temperature, texture, taste, smell, sounds, color and/or pressure. It is one activity that involves every aspect of sensory input. So, if your reading and collating of sensory data is off, eating is almost always affected.

The vast majority of children with sensory issues are picky eaters. A small percentage of them are overeaters or indiscriminate eaters. So predominate are eating issues among children with Sensory Processing Disorder that if a parent tells me her child has no problems with food, I suspect the Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) diagnosis is either wrong or I know the problem is mild.

Incorporating a nutritional overhaul can assist with easing a sensory-sensitive child’s behavioral and emotional difficulties. How? The neurological therapy one does to correct SPD, such as occupational therapy (OT), needs a biochemical base to hold it. The sensory system is the nervous system. It is just that the parts, like the vestibular system, are embedded in the brain, so you don’t see them like you see your ears. You can have corrective sensory treatment, but if the chemistry of the nervous system is not optimal, the body will not hold the corrections. It is like going to a chiropractor with a broken back and expecting exercises and adjustments to work.

Children behave in certain ways for a reason. We can blame the parents or label them as spoiled, but I think they are trying the best they can within the system they are operating. Look at what your picky eater is consuming. Imagine yourself eating that same meal plan (or snack plan in many cases). Most people have no trouble imagining how they would feel on a diet of bagels, crackers and macaroni and cheese. Lousy. Cranky. Volatile. Just like their kid feels.

A study by Brown & Matheny (1971) with twins found a measurable IQ difference when one twin was a picky eater and one ate a balanced diet. The picky eater, especially if he was a boy, performed more poorly on the IQ test. Many researchers like to use twins because the genetics and much of the rest of the environment is the same.

The authors said, “This study utilized such reported difference within young twin pairs to show that subtle variations in eating habits in the first year, an important period for brain growth and development, can be related to difference in mental abilities”.

Sensory processing is a primitive mental function but critical for optimal cognitive and physical development. What is more surprising is that we expect youngsters’ engines to run optimally on bad fuel. “Oh, they were just going through a phase,” the worried parent is told. Or, “All kids eat like that.” Some nutrients, such as fats, are structural. That means, you literally put them into your body as you would put a brick into a wall. The right fat creates one structure that has a certain kind of function while a different fat will build a different structure with altered function. In animal studies, when rats are given the kind of fats found in highly processed fast food and snacks, they could not learn how to run through mazes. In another study, they did not want to socialize with other rats when they were fed inferior diets.

The chemistry of the body matters. So a parent should take control of her “sensational” child’s nutrition as soon as that little voice in her head that says, “Mayday!” starts talking. First, gather information, such as the type in this book. Next, close the gap between what the child is willing to eat and what they need for optimal brain development using nutritional supplements. You may need a professional to help you figure out what you need and how to get it in place. Third, get the help you need.

Being concerned for your child’s welfare does not automatically brand you as an over-anxious parent. If you are concerned, there is likely an excellent reason. No, your child cannot thrive on a diet of three foods unless those three foods are chard, fish and brown rice. Even then, we would have to add some calcium, vitamin C and vitamin D.

When you add a sensory diet to your child’s life, it rewires nervous system function. Every time you have an experience, there is a neurological action that goes with that experience. Let’s say you are bouncing on a ball, for example. Your brain now has to process pressure information (from your backside). The part of your brain that reads proprioceptor information is now flooded with repetitive pressure information. The neurons there are firing over and over with every bounce.

Once those neurons are firing many, many times the brain has to make an adjustment. In the beginning, the neurons talk one to the next in a tentative way because they have never fired in that direction before. A neuron (nerve cell) in your brain can have anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 connections when operating in a mature, complex brain. When one fires a group of neurons together over and over, the number of connections starts to increase so that it is easier to run that pathway. Your body reasons that you continue to do this activity, so it must be important. Chemical changes occur to make it easier to fire these neurons, and once one gets going, your body gets used to this activity so the whole group fires together more smoothly. This is the chemistry of learning.

Once the pathways get to a certain point of development, you need new information to build more complexity. In learning disabilities or SPD, the child keeps having the experience, yet the learning does not occur or persist. The child can bounce for hours and never seem to get tired of it or turn the bouncing into the basis for new learning. (“We have bounced enough and know how to read pressure. Now let’s try something imaginative like playing dress up”.)

The right program for your child will involve a combination of the balanced chemistry (diet) and the specific evolving sensory activities that will help your child’s brain so it can take in and process new information better. Do nutritional deficits cause sensory processing disorders? Yes. Do sensory processing disorders cause eating problems? Yes. Which comes first? Here is a classic chicken-or-egg dilemma that will keep cocktail party conversation going for hours. Chynna, along with many other parents, doctors and therapists, has recognized the important relationship between nutrition and the nervous system and the need to address one side to fix the other. This book will help you figure out what that might look like in your unique situation.

Kelly Dorfman, M.S., L.N.D.

Acknowledgments

I have so many people I’d like to thank for making this book what I hoped it would become. And I hope I remember every one.

First, I thank Dr. Lucy Miller for carrying on Dr. Ayres’ work. Without you, there wouldn’t be the fabulous OTs out there teaching our children how to live in our world with us the way they truly want to.

I am so grateful to Kathy Mulka and her wonderful team of occupational therapists who have not only worked miracles with my children, but who have also filled in the blanks with this often-confusing and overwhelming disorder so that I can be a better parent to my kids.

Thank you to Jen for sharing your personal success story. I love putting other caregivers in the spotlight, and you certainly deserve to be there. Thank you to Kelly Dorfman, Dana Laake, Dr. Shane Steadman, Krysten Hager and Jane Hersey for your expertise and sharing your wisdom and insight. I am so fortunate to know such incredible people.

Thank you to Victor Volkman, and all the folks at Loving, Healing Press for believing in me, my children and our projects on SPD. With his support, we have created different ways of helping these families learn to cope with this disorder in their own way. Special thanks to Laurie Zelinger, PhD, ABPP, RPT-S, a board certified psychologist who provided last minute technical and editorial assistance.

Last, but certainly not least, I am so, so grateful to my little family. “Mom” for being my #1 fan, Ryan for helping me out when deadlines needed to be met and to my four little babies. You all continue to inspire me each and every day with your beautiful faces, your belly laughs and your never-ending energy.

This book is a loving mixture of our own experiences with the information from the experts you should keep close at hand.

I hope with all of my heart, it helps you along your own ‘sensational’ journey. (When I say “sensational child”, this is just shorthand for “a child with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)” in this book.)

Introduction

When my fifteen-year old daughter was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) 13 years ago, we were lost in terms of what to do for her. We’d lived with her ‘quirks’ (the name we gave to her severe behaviors and reactions to things) for so long and thought we’d been coping pretty well. What we didn’t realize at the time was that our ‘coping strategies’ weren’t really helping in the right way. In fact, we were unknowingly adding to her struggles.

Our house had become almost like a battleground with the enemy sneaking up on us at any moment of the day, silent and without warning. After a while, we learned what set off our daughter’s meltdowns, and instead of facing hours of trying unsuccessfully to calm her after an event, visit, shopping trip or other experience, we timed such things to the second before the meltdown was eminent or simply avoided experiences completely.

My child’s fear of the outside world became so intense, there were days I had to physically force her out on the front lawn just to get some fresh air and sunshine (in the most loving, supportive way I could, of course). And it grew to become complete isolation for our family.

In the earlier years, we did the best we could without knowing what our daughter was dealing with. But I also knew that how we were handling things wasn’t helping. How could it? She wasn’t experiencing her childhood the way she should have been, and it hurt me to watch her staring out our living room window watching other kids running and playing. But her sensitivity to things, mostly noise, smells and especially touch, were so severe that it literally took hours to bring her down from any sort of stimulation.

If it was too windy; if the lawn care guys were doing their job; if it was too sunny; if there were too many kids around her; if the lights in a store were ‘flickery’; if someone dared to come over and say, “Hi!”; if her clothes didn’t feel right, she cried, screamed and even clawed at her eyes, ears, or skin until we brought her back home to her ‘safe place’. I knew I had to take more assertive steps in getting her what she needed.

The first professional who worked with our daughter, a loving occupational therapist (OT) named Donna Gravelle, said to me one day after our weekly at-home sessions, “You have to encourage this little girl to get out there and experience the world the best way she can. Otherwise she’ll never learn that the world doesn’t have to be such a scary place.”

After two years of different sorts of therapy, with nothing working the way it should have, a psychiatrist ‘strongly suggested’ that we put our daughter on medication to ease her anxiety. Needless to say, we were shocked.

“Surely there have to be other ways to treat a three-year-old child than with drugs,” I said in response. “There have to be other options, better options, for us to try before we’d even consider that.”

That’s actually a nicer way to describe what I’d said, but the point is that we wanted to treat our daughter holistically and without medication. That didn’t mean we were ‘anti-medication’. We were parents at the beginning of our journey with SPD and believed there must have been so many options available to try first.

The most important of the options that we discovered later was called the Sensory Diet. Note that the word diet here refers to a regimen or program. It is not specific to nutritional intake, although nutrition works very closely in the treatment process. And it was Donna who made it clear to us just how important the Sensory Diet is for a child with SPD.

At first, when Donna tried to explain to me how much my daughter needed a sensory diet, I have to admit I was a bit defensive. How could she know what my daughter needed? I had done everything I could to make the world safe for her. I knew exactly what things / people /experiences / clothes / etc. set her off, and I did everything in my power to make her feel better about those things / people / experiences / clothes / etc. even if I had to remove or avoid them. How dare Donna say that my child needed something else! But once I fully absorbed what she had said, I realized how right she was.

You see, by allowing my daughter to hide out in the sanctity of our home and helping her to avoid potentially sensory stimulating things, I was adding to her problem. I wasn’t teaching her how to face things head-on. Instead, I helped her keep everything away that might have had a negative impact on her so that she didn’t have to feel uncomfortable or scared. No wonder her reactions to things worsened over time.

She wasn’t learning how to be in tune enough with her body to be able to say, “Okay, _____ makes me feel _____, so I have to _____ to feel better.” That’s how we help these children. By experiencing things in a fun, safe way so they learn how to function in the world around them. As Carol Stock Kranowitz (author of the book The Out Of Sync Child) has said time and time again, “Children learn when they’re moving… and that’s critical for children with dysfunction of sensory integration, or SPD.

I’ve learned two invaluable lessons in the past thirteen years of dealing with SPD in two of my four children. The first lesson was letting go of the belief that I could do it all by myself. My children needed a trained expert in SPD and sensory sensitivity to teach all of us how to help them. These children thrive best when everyone around them supports, nurtures and learns right beside them.

The second lesson was that knowledge is power. Believe me, if I’d known back then all that I know now, things may have been so different. But we can never look back. We can only look forward to brighter and better things. And that’s what I hope to help you achieve with this book.

This book is all about the Sensory Diet---why we do it, what we need to make it work, who’s involved and what should happen. Yes, there are many ups and downs and this book also delves into several of those other concerns, such as discipline, school and even other disorders that can be inter-related, or comorbid with SPD (e.g. ADHD, anxiety or OCD) and how the diet can also help in these areas.

It took me a long time to realize that in order to advocate for my children, I had to understand everything about their disorder, including all the best ways to help them. Once I reached that level of understanding, I was finally able to help others understand SPD too. After all, if these children are learning how to cope in the world with others then we should be willing to do our part to help them achieve success.

From the bottom of my heart, and to all of those helping me bring this information to other parents, thank you.

1

Your Child‘s Brain and Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)

If you are reading this book, it is likely that your child has recently been diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). This is probably alarming and confusing. It may be the first time you’ve ever heard of this condition. What is it? How did my child get it? What can I do about it?

You may be unfamiliar with neurology lingo and have little use for highly technical explanations of SPD. However, in order to be of the best possible help to your child in navigating through the struggles ahead, it is very important that you gain a layman’s understanding of what SPD is.

When I first heard about SPD, I was told that it was a disorder that interferes with how the brain communicates with the rest of the body. I wanted to understand this basic definition better, so I decided to learn as much as I could about the entire nervous system.

Arming yourself with the layman’s version of the brain and nervous system gives you several advantages:

•Once you understand how a properly functioning system is supposed to work, you’ll be able to see your child in an entirely new light. Most people can handle almost anything if they are armed with the right information. When my daughter was first diagnosed, I talked to therapists, psychologists and other parents. I also took courses on the brain and child development. Learning about the brain and its various functions is essential because in doing so you will better understand SPD and what you’re dealing with. You’ll find answers to all of those ‘what’ questions. But learning about the brain and nervous system answers the ‘why’ questions, such as, “Why does this sensation bother her so much when another one doesn’t?” or “Why can’t she run, jump and stay balanced?” and “Why can she create gorgeous pictures, but not able to hold a pencil to write properly or coordinate her hands to use scissors?” Having that knowledge can be both comforting and empowering.

•Knowing more about the brain and nervous system helps you step back and identify possible causes of the behaviors you’re seeing in your child. Understanding what the triggers are enables you to help your child mange his behaviors more effectively.

•SPD has often been termed as an ‘invisible’ disorder because you can’t see it on a child’s face or body and you can’t give a child pills to make it go away. Absorbing as much information as we can empowers us to be strong advocates for our children, because we know that they don’t simply have behavioral problems, but are actually struggling with something much deeper.

•The more we understand about the disorder, and the systems and organs it affects, the better we can help educate others. After all, our children are learning how to function in the world around them and with the people in it. Shouldn’t those same people understand how to interact with our children too? Unfortunately, caregivers and educators who don’t know about SPD, or understand how it truly affects the body, may punish the child for her overt behavior instead of digging for the root of the reactions.

The Nervous System – Our Body’s Messenger System

I was taught to think of the nervous system as a huge messaging corporation made up of the Head Office (the brain, pun intended), the central messaging track (spinal cord) and the micro-messaging routes (peripheral system). And, of course, there are the little bicycle messengers and messenger assistants (the neurons and neurotransmitters) that take the brain’s messages everywhere they’re supposed to go.

I will briefly go over these different areas in order to understand how the whole system works together, and then discuss how SPD interferes with the nervous system’s ability to do its job effectively.

The Head Office: the Brain

Considering its size, only about 2.9 pounds (or 1.3 kilograms), it is amazing how many tiny structures there are inside the human brain and how all of those tiny structures work together taking in, processing and sending out information to help our bodies function most effectively. And because of this need for unity, dysfunction in one area of the brain can impact functioning in other areas, which can result in the body not getting clear messages about what it’s supposed to be doing. A lot of SPD research focuses on the areas and structures in the brain relating to sensation, emotion, motivated behavior, movement, attention, sleep and maintenance of muscle tone.

The head office of our messaging corporation is divided into two departments (hemispheres), which communicate the ‘goings-on’ of the rest of the corporation through a thin, but strong, wall (corpus callosum). Now each of these main departments has its own special jobs and functions (lateralization), but they work as a team to get other members of the corporation to do their jobs efficiently and properly.

The head office divvies up jobs fairly by dividing the main departments into mini areas (lobes) that are each in charge of specific bodily functions:

•Frontal deals with behavior, personality, control of movement and learning.

•Parietal mostly helps out with proprioception (perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body) as well as processing tactile and visual information

•Temporal takes on tasks having to do with coordinating hearing and speech and,

•Occipital in the back of the brain, deals with vision and helping the brain to understand what the eyes are seeing.

Before messages get to the head office, the VP of Operations (brain stem) stops them and decides which area of the head office each message should go to for processing and suggests an appropriate course of action. The VP has assistants to read messages about balance, equilibrium and coordination (cerebellum) and helps determine the meaning of those messages (limbic system). From there, messages are then analyzed by the VP of Central Processing (cerebral cortex) before being sent back into the messaging system, since it has final say on the processing of sensory and motor information for the corporate body.

Once this procedure is complete, which actually takes mere seconds, the response is shipped out of the VP of Operations area to the messaging track (spinal cord) to reach its final destination.

Although this is an extremely simplified explanation, it really is all a parent needs to know at this point. The most important thing to remember is that the connection of these messages is very important because if they get mixed up, or stopped, at any other point, the receiver won’t know what’s going on.

According to Dr. A. Jean Ayres, who was a Masters-level occupational therapist, a Ph.D. in educational psychology and credited for discovering SPD, the areas in the brain specialized to one sense receive information and respond simultaneously to more than one sort of sensation at a time.

Here’s an example of how sensory and motor senses work together. If you gave a baby a rattle, it could be a brightly colored or shiny silver one that feels cold/smooth/textured in some way and makes noise when shaken. The sensory systems involved with vision, tactile, hearing, fine motor skills (to grasp the rattle), and coordination will have to work together to give the child the information he or she needs to interact properly with the rattle. So, you see how things can be a little confusing, even for something as basic as playing with a toy, when messages aren’t being processed properly.

The Spinal Cord: The Message Track

Essentially, the spinal cord’s job is to carry sensory and motor input messages to the brain, as well as response messages from the brain to the rest of the body. Using our messaging system analogy, messages travel along the messaging track to the head office for processing, then the responses are brought back to their final destination in the corporate body for action.

There really isn’t much sensory processing going on in the spinal cord, but it’s important to understand what’s happening in there because some of the exercises in later chapters involved stimulating and stretching out the spinal cord to help it do its job more effectively.

Neurons and Neurotransmitters: The Transporters and Bicycle Messengers

Neurons are defined as brain cells that send and receive messages using electrical impulses. Neurotransmitters are the chemicals that help the neurons communicate with one another. So going back to our messenger model, messages are taken from the messaging track (spinal cord) by the bicycle messengers (neurons), who transport the important messages to a small sorting area (synapse) that stop the message in order to decide what the next bicycle messenger should do with it. Once a decision is made, the messenger assistants send the message along on its journey. The message actually makes several stops like this along its way before it reaches its final destination. It is like a relay race in which one runner goes a certain distance, then passes the baton to the next runner waiting.

As long as the messenger assistants interpret the messages correctly, or don’t lose them somehow, it’s usually a smooth run.

The Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): The Body’s Micro-Messaging Routes

This division of our message corporation is where messages travel on their journey after processing, or on their way up for processing. It’s the route the bicycle messengers follow. It sort of resembles a spider web stemming from the spinal cord out to the rest of the body. SPD researchers are interested in this area because it is in charge of delivering the messages that instruct the body how to react to, or even whether to react to, sensory stimulation.

The micro-messaging route (PNS) is sub-divided into two main parts:

•The somatic nervous system, which is the section that helps us interact with our environments. It contains sensory bicycle messengers (afferent nerves) that carry the sensory message from skin, skeletal muscle, joints, eyes, ears, etc. to the nervous system and motor bicycle guys (efferent nerves), which carry motor messages from the brain and spine to the skeletal muscles.

•The autonomic or sensory nervous system, which is in charge of the functions in our bodies that we aren’t consciously aware of. This system also has afferent nerves that carry sensory messages from the organs to the brain and efferent nerves that carry motor messages from the brain to the internal organs. This system has smaller sub-divisions called the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. These systems are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2, which discusses the interoceptors. For now, all you need to remember is that the sympathetic system prepares us to deal with stress or danger – the heartbeat increases, our breathing rate increases, we become more aware of sensory stimulation – due to an increase of adrenaline in the system. The parasympathetic system, on the other hand, is what’s in charge of bringing the body back down and keeping it in a homeostatic, or calm, state.

Why do you need to know all of this? Because neurons and brain structures can be working perfectly fine, but the neurotransmitters that help carry the message to the next neuron in line may not know how to interpret that message. This results in the final message being misinterpreted or scrambled, resulting in the brain and body not understanding what to do. It’s sort of like play the game ‘telephone’ where a group of people are in a line and the first person whispers something to the person next to him. That person then whispers the message they heard to the next person and the message gets repeated in a whisper from one person to the next down the line until the last person says aloud what she heard. Often the final message isn’t even close to what the original person had said.

As you’ll find out in Chapter 3, the Sensory Diet is how we help our children ‘unscramble’ those messages so they’re able to function better.

In summary, your child with SPD doesn’t have a brain problem. He has a connection problem. But with the right mixture of nutrition, exercises and other sensory activities, your child’s connections can be helped along to do their job much more effectively.

And that’s the whole focus of this book.

Why Can't We See SPD on an Ultrasound? Why Is There No Blood Test to Confirm SPD? SPD: An Invisible Disorder

These are two very common questions parents ask when their child is first diagnosed with SPD, and they are logical ones. After our children have gone through a rigorous assessment process in order to confirm sensory issues, as well as the severity level, there is still no one who can give us a solid, conclusive reason why our child has this disorder. This knowledge is important to parents. We need those answers so we can understand and face the diagnosis. The good news is that as time goes on, and more parents share their pearls of wisdom, that knowledge is spreading. And we are closer than ever to learning the answers we so desperately want to our many 'why' questions.

SPD has often been called an invisible disorder because you can't see it. There's nothing on the outside of these children to indicate they have something wrong with them other than their reactions to stimuli and their overt behavior. And that can be so frustrating when trying to take that first step in seeking help.

I wondered why, despite all the ultrasounds I'd had when I was pregnant, no one was able to see anything wrong with my daughter's brain. What I didn't realize then was that those technicians were only measuring the size of her brain and marking the development of the brain structures. They couldn't see SPD or monitor how it affected the brain structures because it's not like a tumor or other physical defect. It's invisible. A blood test wouldn't tell you whether SPD is present either because it isn't in the bloodstream. It's deep in the circuitry of the nervous system.

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, SPD is considered a connection problem. We can't see that those messages aren't getting through or that the brain struggles to read them. In utero, the brain is still developing and as long as the technicians can see limbs moving and the heart beating, they assume the brain is doing its initial job. There are no visible indications of SPD until the baby comes into the world and tries interacting with their environment.

How Does SPD Interfere With the Brain‘s Job?

Now that you have a basic understanding of how the brain, nervous system and sensory systems work together as a team to help process sensory information effectively, it’s equally as important to also have a solid understanding of what happens to that well-functioning system when a child has SPD.

I’ve come to learn that there’s a huge difference between knowing about something and understanding it. It’s vital that parents understand exactly what SPD is, what it isn’t and why the Sensory Diet is essential in helping their children function in, and interact effectively with, the world around them. Plus, understanding this disorder empowers parents to be the strongest advocates they can be for their child.

When my daughter was diagnosed with SPD, I was relieved to finally understand what she’d been struggling with, but I also felt lost and powerless at the same time. Not only did I still not understand what was wrong with her most of the time (even after the diagnosis), but I also never knew the right way to help her. And often the things I tried only made her reactions worse. As I figured out later on, I wasn’t doing the right activities at the right times, so my attempts to help her were more irritating for her than soothing.

On top of that, raw feelings of immense guilt for not being able comfort my own child were intensified when I was told I needed extra help in caring for her. That was hurtful and hard to accept at first, but I knew I had to do something. She’d suffered so much already to that point and was literally trapped inside of herself. She needed someone to free her, and I needed someone to help me learn how to maintain that freedom.

In retrospect, I realize there’s nothing wrong with accepting outside help. There’s truth to the old expression, “It takes a village to raise a child”. It doesn’t mean others have to take care of a child because the parents can’t. It means that there are people out there who are experts in certain areas who can help fill in the gaps within our own parental expertise. And so, with the help of a loving, caring and knowledgeable occupational therapist (OT), I learned how to pay closer attention to my child’s reactions in various situations, was coached on figuring out her triggers and was taught how to identify which parts of her Sensory Diet she needed and when.

The following sections help to make aspects of the disorder clear so parents and caregivers understand what their child’s diet is supposed to do and recognize signs when more intense treatment options may be required. You may already be well-informed on the details of this chapter, but it’s always