hide-n-(sensory)-seeking

Brain Dominance affects more than handedness. We   tend to think of our dominant side only in terms of right or left handedness. But brain dominance controls a whole lot more than that.  As you probably know, the left side of your brain controls the right side of your body and the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body. Typically, brain dominance not only determines handedness, but also which foot we lead with, which eye we focus with, and much less well known, which ear we listen better with. Kit is  extremely  right dominant. To the point that I several times looked up information on cerebral palsy, though I have been assured she is fine. It's really a matter of communication in her brain itself. Miss V explained to me recently that the left side of the brain is our logic center. It is very linear and pattern based, thus it is  where we process language and math. Whereas the right hemisphere is our emotion center. This...

Reflexes are very important! Have you ever been drifting off to sleep, only to suddenly jerk awake, slightly flailing your arms out, having a sudden, though brief, sensation of falling? That was your Moro reflex at work. Your brain for whatever reason felt that you needed to use it, so even though it's sort of been "dormant" in your system for a long time, it's still available in an emergency. We are all born with reflexes, and as we grow these reflexes become integrated into our nervous system. In a way, they lay dormant until our body has a need for them again. This is normal, and vital to growth and balance of our complex body systems. In some individuals, and very prevalent in those on the Autism spectrum, these reflexes do not properly integrate. They may however change their appearance and how they manifest throughout the body. This leads to a whole host of body systems that are getting mixed and messed up messages. It's not unlike trying to cli...

A brain divided cannot stand. Quite literally, in fact. When connections and synapses in the brain are not communicating well, one can have great difficulty with both simple and complex motor tasks. But it can affect much more than just that. The ability to perform multi-step actions, to interpret information received from the senses, to use more than one sense at once, and one of the most noticeable, the ability to execute speech. One of the most obvious examples of this is when an individual suffers a stroke or brain aneurysm. It is part of what can cause asymmetrical paralysis. And occupational therapy helps to not only retrain the muscles, but also to reteach the brain how to communicate with itself. This is the roll occupational therapy is playing for Kit as well. We are teaching her brain to communicate better with itself, and with her body. While many of her motor skills are actually quite advanced, there are many other areas that connections are lacking or need ...

The last two months have been about as calm as a school of piranhas in a feeding frenzy. Yeah. I won't get into the grisly details about our visit from a stomach bug, or bore you with our loosing battle with allergies and house work. I'll skip right to the major changes. We have finally started therapy. We have had almost weekly visits from an Occupational Therapist who possesses a miraculous understanding of sensory issues and how connected they are to every other body and mind function. She does a lot of teaching me about specific reflexes and sensory integration, and each week gives me new protocols to use on Kit. One of the biggest things I learned? I was right on that her sensory issues are a major cause for many of her challanges, especially where her sleep and speech were concerned. But I would never have been able to address her issues on my own. I am working toward administering the protocols every day, or at least some every day, but real life application of the...