Sensory success stories?

[Probablygreen]

DS (almost 5) has recently been ‘diagnosed’ (I know in terms of disorders etc. it’s not a diagnosis as such but for want of a better term...) with poor proprioception. He has a lot of sensory seeking behaviours and as a result he struggles to focus, play independently and has very clumsy and uncoordinated movement.
I’m reading up on it and getting increasingly concerned as, whilst activities and exercises are classed as ‘treatments’ I can’t see anywhere that says they will fix his receptors.
Is he going to need activities and input like this throughout his whole school life?
In reception it’s fine as they’re learning through play anyway, so adding in a few extra sensory activities is fine. Even through primary I can envision it, although I’m sad that he’s going to be markedly different from his peers and they will start to pick up on that. But secondary...
Will he still need this input when he’s 12/13 and what will school do about it? Is he destined to be labelled as the child who won’t listen and sit still, or is this actually going to help him focus?
For what it’s worth, this ‘diagnosis’ is no surprise to us and we already do many of the suggested activities on a daily basis (and have done since he was 2 years old). They haven’t helped so far.
I’m so worried for him 😭

Have you been able to speak to an occupational therapist? They (in my opinion) will be the best People to speak to. My son has dyspraxia and sensory processing disorder and has been seeing an occupational therapist (privately) for 5 months and the difference in him is huge. He doesn’t fall over nearly as much, is much more regulated, less anxious and more confident. I can’t say doing his exercises every day has been easy but it’s definitely helping! X

Oh and we were told that the sensory issues do settle down as they get older and more able to regulate themselves.

Yes he’s had 2 OT assessments, but as I say they just mentioned activities and exercises that we have been doing as standard for 3 years anyway with no improvement. If you don’t mind me asking what kind of things were recommended to you?
It’s looking highly likely we’ll end up with the same diagnoses as you.

@Newuser82

Oh and we were told that the sensory issues do settle down as they get older and more able to regulate themselves.

🙌 that’s quite a relief and exactly what I needed to hear, thank you

My 4 year old has lots of sensory issues, proposecrive and vestibular seeking being the driving ones. I can't ever see him sitting still. We've had an extra term in nursery for school to help him start putting regulation ssrragies in place and work more with his speech and language difficulties. He just wasn't in a place to cope with reception after lock down
There are lots of options to help with regulation as they get older. School will look into different types of seating, push bands on seats and have a plan in place for him to have proper sensory breaks.
I've found sensory spectacle amazing for beginning to understand his needs and develop strategies to support him at home while he is on waiting lists for other support.

I work with teenagers and there are a number if kids who need proprioceptive input. I agree that OTs are very helpful managing this. We use plans where the kids, for example, have a trampolining session before English or maths in order to help them concentrate. I don't think the other kids particularly notice or are aware. Dc's needs can be managed quite discretely.

Sensory issues improve with age as he learns to regulate himself but they'll never be able to "fix" him. It's not really something we fully understand in it's physical state, never mind being able to fix whatever is going wrong between his receptors and brain processing.

He will always want more sensory input that a neurotypical person but he'll be able to manage and find stims that allow him to function and satisfy that need.

So the exercises he does day to day include various trampolining exercises, bouncing on a yoga ball and weighted twists, ball squeezes, play doh activities, climbing, ‘heavy work’ stuff like tug of war, bear crawls etc, that kind of thing x