Deep Pressure Massage and Children with Behavioral Issues

The school OT suggested we use a technique known as deep pressure massage during the 2 week Chrismas break. It's my understanding that this is a technique that some OT's use with patients to try and stimulate the brainstem. The brainstem stimulation teaches the child to learn to "chill out" during very stressful times instead of having a tantrum, head-banging or swearing, which is more common for him.

So, we began on Friday night....every 2 hours when he is awake, we take a small brush (it's a surgical scrub brush) and apply deep pressure, similar to a massage, to his arms, back, and legs for about a minute. Then, we follow it with joint compression (I think that's what it is called) for all of his joints. So far, we've been doing it for almost 48 hours and he welcomes it. He likes to try and give Mom the massage - which I think is cute. We'll train his babysitter tomorrow to complete it when he's at daycare and then will work with the special education teacher to do it when he starts back to school. According to the OT, we'll count this period as a very intense deep pressure massage for the next 3 weeks. Then, after that, we'll only bring it out when we know he's going to face a stressful time - for example, the start of the new school year.

I have more information about deep pressure massage that I will post later. It is a technique that is very controversial and cannot be used for every child. If you think it may help your child begin to learn coping strategies, please engage the help of a trained occupational therapist.

Seeking Help From School for Jackson

Sorry it has been so long since I last wrote, but it's taken quite awhile (almost 2 months) for the school to complete the testing and for us to learn the results.

Well, in a nutshell, according to the school psychologists, Jackson does not fall on the autism spectrum. We're not sure if that's completely true as he has a lot of behavioral outputs that are characteristic of some children with autism. Anyway, after much testing, they decided to qualify him for special education services (which I think are now officially referred to as the resource room) so he can have assistance in learning letters and numbers, writing, and reinforcing what the teacher is learning. He did qualify for these services under developmental delay, which is something we've said from the beginning. Our son seems to be about 1-2 years behind his peers, which is very common of children who have been institutionalized. He also qualified for services and help from OT (occupational therapy) and PT (physical therapy), so we feel like we may be making progress. More to come as we learn more....

Jackson seems to have "adjusted" to the classroom as his teacher reports he's sitting in the circle more often, playing with some of his classmates, sitting at the table, and fewer tantrums. So, we're optimistic that the teacher and his classroom aide have done a GREAT job in helping him. He knows all of his capital ABC's now and can count to 12 - sometimes 20 (on a good day). We're working with number recognition now.