[blindkid] Social behavior

Tue Nov 1 18:57:36 UTC 2011

Richard,
you are a wonder!
Carol

At 09:50 AM 10/26/2011, you wrote:
>There are a couple of things to try. First, increase his "motion and 
>sensory diet" and then later, redirect unwanted behaviors. Your OT 
>is right to try and address this as soon as possible. Waiting will 
>just make things worse and you'll no doubt want to let your child 
>"fit in" as well as possible from an early age to not allow 
>"blindisms" to get in the way of social development and building friendships.
>
>Our daughter is nine and has no light perception. When kids, 
>especially young kids new to learning alternative skills of 
>blindness are sitting about, they begin to try to introduce movement 
>into their behavior that feels "safe". It starts very early on. If a 
>kid knows that waking, or certainly running across a room or a field 
>may end up with a trip or a crash, but feels that it is quite safe 
>to rock or spin, what are they going to choose? I suspect it is 
>entirely unconscious. Little kids need to move around and they are 
>going to do so no matter what. The only question is HOW the movement 
>will manifest itself. Surely my typically-sighted 5-year-old son 
>moves around a great deal. He reminds me of the old "Family Circus" 
>cartoons in the Sunday paper where the little boy follows a dotted 
>line through the entire house just to cross the room at times.
>
>Find movement your child enjoys. Our daughter, Kendra loves to spin 
>and that is not ideal (another fairly classical "blindism"). We try 
>to redirect the spinning unless she is "dancing" (more appropriate) 
>and the best thing we have found has been a small trampoline with 
>sides on it. We have actually had her jump through something like 8 
>of them (I have lost count) of various designs. She jumps until the 
>springs break, and frames tear-- in once case the frame collapsed 
>entirely. We always keep a small one available to her inside the 
>house (in our playroom).
>
>We started with the one with a handle on the side and then moved 
>into several designs from about 4 to roughly 7 feet in diameter with 
>sides. She uses it a bit less now (though still often) but at age 5 
>it was not uncommon to have her jumping for an hour or more a day. 
>When she might try to rock, or for her more often to just start 
>spinning, we'd take her to the trampoline. After a while sometimes 
>she would actually get up in the morning and walk straight to the 
>trampoline and start jumping.
>
>We also installed a heavy duty mount in the middle of our playroom 
>and set up a way to have several different styles of swings, some of 
>which could also spin. We went from baby swings to tire swings as 
>well as various cloth and net "hammock" style swings that offer 
>compression as well as motion.
>
>Compression, much like swaddling a baby may help in many forms. We 
>would roll Kendra up in blankets and make her a "Hot Dog", adding on 
>various pretend condiments. She found it hysterical. We would take 
>her in blankets and swing her with a parent on each end. Be careful 
>how you do this, but if you know how, gentle joint compression can 
>help too. Consult an expert on that first but results can me amazing.
>
>Kendra has been taking swim lessons since she was 4 or 5--private 
>lessons to help her become quite a good swimmer by this point. There 
>is an obvious water-safety benefit as well, but mainly we wanted to 
>offer her more ranges of motion. It is much harder to crash into 
>things in a pool so it feels very safe, especially when you can 
>stand and touch the bottom still. Now that she swims so well, the 
>depth is no longer an issue. Once we were terrified that she might 
>walk into a pool one day. Now is it not a concern any more than with 
>any typically-sighted child who swims well.
>
>Kendra takes yoga lessons, more great safe-feeling movement because 
>there is no cavorting about to cause crashes. She took it privately 
>at first and now does classes. Again, years of this. Yoga is 
>especially nice because the safe movement is also very socially 
>appropriate and shared with sighted friends. We have taken 
>gymnastics classes too, as well as years of ballet, tap and jazz 
>classes. Sometimes she likes to bike- she'll go slowly solo, or at 
>speed on a tandem. When she was younger, we had a couple of the 
>small "bouncie houses" that she outgrew, so we even went so far as 
>to buy a used commercial one-- it is huge and heavy but what a grand 
>place for her to go and jump for hours at a time when it is warm 
>out. Far safer than a large trampoline.
>
>We have also had many outings to places like "Monkey Joe's" where 
>they have maybe a dozen or more flavors of inflatable play 
>structures. There will be one at a Halloween party this weekend so 
>I'm going to make certain to take her. We take her to the park where 
>she swings and slides and we built her a huge playground at home 
>too. The home playground was great for her because she knew where 
>everything was when she was young. (At age 9, she's more comfortable 
>exploring a playground.) Another big help is that by her current 
>age, she had friends at school who will show her around and play 
>with her on the playground. (We have worked hard to help the 
>"para-pros" learn when to back away in these cases.) They even show 
>her where to climb on climbing structures. That's a harder thing to 
>get comfortable with as a parent, but it is age appropriate behavior 
>and motion. ("If not now, when?")
>
>It should also be noted that her school understands that she is 
>expected to participate in gym class, and she does. (Get this in his 
>IEP.) Generally an aide helps keep Kendra informed and oriented as 
>to what is going on. At the school fundraising run/walk last month, 
>she walked around the block with the rest of the kids, and 
>wonderfully, several of the "upperclassmen" (5th graders and she is 
>in 3rd) slowed their pace to let Kendra walk with them the whole 
>way. I was very touched. I was there walking with her (parents were 
>invited) and immediately moved aside and gave her friends as much 
>room as possible to walk with her. Sure there are risks, especially 
>with the jumping and climbing. She could break something, etc., but 
>so could any child. All we can do is offer reasonably safe ways to 
>get what she needs to have in her sensory diet.
>
>Don't forget running either. At first, running may not feel "safe" 
>to a blind child, and more than that, it frightens parents and 
>teachers, but it need not be avoided. Kendra will take my hand and 
>run, and on occasion has taken off running with great enjoyment in 
>an open field or on flat sand stretches. We even found an indoor 
>place with a huge open areas and astro-turf-- the thick kind like 
>for playing football or soccer on. Some people set up ropes with 
>something like a cardboard tube or can on them stretched between 
>trees (with something to mark when to stop) to offer kids more ways 
>to run. She's a great cane traveler but so far cane-running has not 
>worked well for her.
>
>At this point, after so many years of having alternatives, unwanted 
>movement is not to common for our daughter, but certainly if she 
>goes for a while with less movement she starts to want to spin. Now 
>with a variety of ways to redirect, we can usually just say "do you 
>need to go and jump" and she will. In fact, more often she'll stop 
>herself and say " I need to go to the trampoline". That is the 
>ultimate goal obviously-- self regulation.
>
>Good Luck!
>
>Richard
>
>
>
>On Oct 26, 2011, at 8:51 AM, Erin Teply wrote:
>
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > I am some questions around social behavior (at least I think that 
> is the best description!).  My son Max, is 5 and in mainstream 
> kindergarten.  He has some 'blindisms' as I call them or some 
> different social behaviors when he gets excited.  He tends to rock 
> his body back and forth and sort of do a strange 'arm-straightener' 
> thing when he gets excited or really wants to say something.  We 
> see this at home in just these cases and I believe the same at 
> school, but because he has to 'sit still' so much more at school, I 
> think the behaviors are more pronounced and/or more often.  I have 
> a meeting tomorrow with his OT and mobility teacher on what we can 
> do to replace or minimize these behaviors.  As we all know, you 
> simply can't tell the child to *stop* this because then they think, 
> "well then what?".  How have some of you dealt with this type of 
> thing?  I think the main concern from his OT that this is socially 
> not acceptable.  Any thoughts are appreciated.
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Erin Teply
> >
> >
> >
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