[blindkid] rocking

[Richard Holloway]

Frequent rocking or spinning or other "blindisims" can be an issue for certain. Our daughter, Kendra (age 9) is much more prone to spin than to rock, but I suspect a similar approach may work for both. 

Blind kids generally move around less and end up with other motion in their "sensory diet" than sighted children. I'm absolutely certain this is true for Kendra. We got her jumping in a trampoline when she was very young. She has jumped to the point of destroying so many that I have lost count, She is 9 years old and we have gone through roughly 8 new trampolines (give or take a couple) in roughly 8 years. She used to jump as much as an hour or two a day. She still jumps, though a bit less now.  She has broken countless elastic loops, springs, trampoline mats, and even actual frames (the springs wore the frame until it failed while being jumped on in one case). We have been through at least 5 designs from different manufacturers. It isn't the trampolines, she just wears them out...

We have added other movement as much as possible. Gymnastics, Dancing, Swimming, Biking, Swinging on various kinds of Swings... If Kendra feels she "has" to spin? We tell her to put it into a dance... We never really had to deal with the rocking so much, but I wonder if more "appropriate" rocking, like using a rocking chair would help get that out of her system, so to speak. THAT (a rocking chair) is just a guess-- I suppose it could make it better or worse, but I doubt a test for a short time would do much harm. On the swinging, if the feels to old to swing in a kid's swing, use a bench type (porch) swing. She can swing with a friend, sibling, or parent....

Our thought here is that socially appropriate movement like spinning in a dance, or in the pool is a good thing as compared to spinning in the middle of the den or a department store... Kendra has also developed sort of a "spinning seat drop" in the trampoline which we are okay with, so long as it stops (or at least reduces) other less desirable movement when she's not jumping.

Our approach has generally been  to send our girl her to the trampoline when she starts to spin at home. "Do you need to go jump?" We usually don't mention she's spinning but just suggest she go and jump, though sometimes we have addressed it directly too. What we have noticed is when she stops jumping so much, she starts to spin more when she is just standing around. It is very repeatable. Go back to jumping more and the spinning is quickly reduced. When she has the routine, sometimes she'll just say "I need to go to the trampoline" and she will self-correct for a desire to spin. That took a while, but it is pretty neat that she does it at this point.

So my suggestion is to redirect when she is rocking (spinning, etc.) and keep her moving as much as possible.

Good luck!


On Apr 30, 2012, at 10:12 AM, hpscheffer at aol.com wrote:

> Hi, I'm looking for suggestions or your feedback on how to help my daughter to stop rocking. She is gotten a lot better, but as some of you may know, when she gets excited or really into something she will do it without realizing it. I'm thinking we are missing something, because just reminding her does not do it. I've heard about the vestibular stimulation rocking will do for a blind person, but her OT and her PT have never worked with a blind child and they do not seem to have an answer. She is 12 and soon to be 13, she is blind from ROP.
> 
> 
> Any information will be appreciated.
> 
> 
> Heidi
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> blindkid mailing list
> blindkid at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for blindkid:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/rholloway%40gopbc.org