...regarding the Julia thing.
Most of you know that Julia sees a PT through Early Intervention. She has low muscle tone (Hypotonia) in her arms, legs, and trunk. As a result she is unable to stand unassisted, pull to standing or, obviously, walk. She crawls like crazy, but didn't start until she was 12 1/2 months old. She didn't roll over until she was just about 8 months old, and had a difficult time holding on to things with a firm grip until she was about 9 months old. Her verbal skills are improving in dramatic ways as of late but this too was delayed by about 4 months according to her EI eval way back in July.
Basically, her arms, legs, and hip area, and especially in comparison to other babies of or about her age feel, um, mushy. There is no real resistance at all and there is nothing there that feels even remotely like a muscle.
For quite some time we (we being her PT, EI Speech Therapist, and Ryun and I) have felt she had some sensory issues. She hates it (and by hates I mean freaks out, cries, pulls away, withdraws, yells, and has a major fit) when she is forced to bear weight on her legs in bare feet. When rubbing various textures (rug, hard surfaces, playdough, beads, grass, sand etc) against her feet she does the same thing. If she has socks on, she does a little better, but virtually the only way she will even attempt to bear weight is with shoes on. Even this is difficult for her, given the low tone but she will at least try to do it with shoes on.
She absolutely can not handle the sensation of something being on her face. For example, if she is eating, and a piece of food doesn't quite make it in to her mouth, and instead rests on her lips or her cheek, she wipes at it like it was physically hurting her. Having her face, hands, or even bum wiped with something wet (or dry for that matter) causes great distress and she generally will do just about anything to avoid any of the above circumstances.
These symptoms seem to be the only ones consistent with sensory integration so if she does have it, it seems to me like it would be mild. She doesn't seem to have any issues with physically being touched or being around a lot of people or loud noises.
Sensory integration can exist alone, although most children with it (I think I read some where 70 %) usually have some form of autism, whether it be mild or severe. Julia, at least right now, shows no signs of having autism. She's verbal, makes eye contact, interacts with other well etc.
Anyway, the diagnosis is not definite and at this point, I am not sure that it will be. She definitely has some sensory issues as pointed out above, but I am not sure I would consider it sensory integration.
Fascinating when seen as a complete overview. I knew the muscle tone problem, of course, and would have associated the trouble standing entirely with that. And who knows, it may yet be that some part of the touching thing is, say, it hurts or is uncomfortable because of a lack of muscle tone (or because of whatever causes the muscle tone problem).
ReplyDeleteThe food on the face and wiping thing, though, and apparent texture sensitivity, really adds to it. It may all still be related, but it's an intriguing juxtaposition.