Sensory questionnaire

[rebl]

We've got a CAMHS home visit on Monday and they were talking about me filling in a sensory questionaire. Can anyone shed any light on this please? DS does some odd behaviours like spinning and spending most of his life upsidedown. He does weird things with his eyes, pokes them as well. He repeatedly hits his head at night. He's most calm when on the trampoline (it was that statement to them last time that made them say they would like to do the questionaire but they had already observed ds at school by then as well so I guess might have seen stuff). Is this all sensory things? Is this what they're going to be asking me about on Monday?

They will be trying to find out if your DS has unusual sensory issues. Lots of children with ASD or other SEN sense things differently. Part of their brains being wired differently. Children can be hypersensitive to things or hypo-sensitive ie sense things more strongly or less strongly than NT people. If your DS spins it may be he doesn't sense motion very well so enjoys lots of motion. He may find loud noises bother him so will be hypersensitive to certain sounds. He may not feel things very strongly, hence the headbanging. My DS is under sensitive to lots of things and has a high pain threshold. But his mouth is hypersensitive and he can't stand hot food. Smells may be sensed too strongly and they may hate perfume or conversely sniff things.

It's all to find out what makes your DS tick to help you and school understand why some things upset or irritate your DS and whether some things will be very distracting. It should help with STAR analysis of triggers for inappropriate behaviour. HTH

The sensory questionaire is long but it's not difficult. They'll want to know about the hitting and spinning and dangling and bouncing - Ds1 is a bit like this and recently had 7 sesions with an occupational therapist through CAMHS which has really helped me to understand some of his (sometimes very frustating) behavior

we did the Winnie Dunn sensory profile for dd3, didn't tell us anything we didn't already know but meant we are now taken seriously when we say she has sensory issues Has helped with ot although they don't do sensory integration therapy on the nhs here.

So things like he doesn't seem to smell things and has no dislikes for food flavours as well then? He eats and licks non food things as well (he's nearly 5 so this should have been grown out of by now).

yep, covers all sensory areas, although make sure they know about hearing issues as that will change the results!

Oh, how does that change the results? They know about the hearing issues. They also know about his sensitivity to noise although whether thats a hearing aid issue I'm not sure. Audiology are trying to get a noise reduction program that works with FM still still working and still keeping the program button turned off and using a remote control or something. He can't manage the school hall or canteen because of the noise.

Sorry rebl, does your DS have a DX? If he's got hearing aids I assume he's got more than ASD type issues with sensory stimulus? Children with hearing problems can have similar looking issues with communication and social skills as ASD but for different reasons. But also children with hearing issues and ASD often don't get the right DX for ages.

Sorry again, I don't know your story as I'm quite new go MN (but not to SEN)

New to MN

that's the problem, could be sensory or could be a ha/deaf issue. Dd3 is under sensitive to noise but that's more of a deaf thing in her case, canteen doesn't bother her at all, not that she can hear anything said to her without a radio aid

They are a specialist deaf CAMHS team so I would hope that they can seperate the issues .

They were brought in because of sleep issues and behaviour issues. I'm desperate for sleep advice but they want to do all these assessments before they give us any advice.

So have we helped or made it a clear as mud?

sorry, should have remembered will you have a long wait before you get some advice or is the last bit?

I don't know if we have to wait longer or not. We've had school observation, home visit without ds here to take history. Now got home visit with ds here to observe and do questionaire. I want help yesterday with the sleep. He's getting worse.

EllenJane I think its clear as mud but clearer than it was . These sensory issues are complicated.

hi
my son has issues with sleeping.
we got him a cd player in his bedroom and put soft music on for him.
he likes it, and it is helping.

good luck.