Tinsley House Support Thread

[IndigoBell]

An awful lot of us are now doing Tinsley House, either by going there, or by following the recommendations in The Brain Food Plan

So this is just a general support (and hopefully good news) thread.

Stage 1 of the TH therapy consists of:

1. Multivitamins

• Omega
• Zinc & Magnesium
• Multivitamin

1. Healthy eating diet

• High protein, low sugar, no artificial sweeteners, additives etc.

1. Specific exercises done 3 times a day

Sorry, i've not read thru yet. life pretty stressful atm and got some health issues. I think the ones we tried were IQ or something like that.

Had a good day at TH. (was sunny and we went for lovely walk in the forest)

DS is doing well. Starting to feel a wide range of happy emotions now - I'm really thrilled. His nystagmus is also vastly improved / all gone. He needs to continue with vision therapy and hemi stim for another 2 months.

DD has now finished vision therapy. apparently her convergence is now perfect. But her eye tracking is not fixed yet. She has gone down from looking at 750 points per 100 words to 600 points. Goal is 150 points. her eyes aren't even looking at the same letter yet! when she tries to read her left eye and right eye are looking at totally different letters.

So he's given her dynamic reader, which is a program she has to do every day to improve her eye tracking. I'm pleased, looks exactly like what she needs.

And she needs to continue with hemi stim.

After we've fixed her eye tracking, then he'll start to work on processing speed and memory. I can't wait.....

4 months till she starts Y5. God I hope she can read by then.

What is hemi stim?

Right hemisphere stimulation - You'll probably get assigned it at your 3rd visit....

What do you do for that?

Hello everyone again, sorry for such intermittent contributions atm, lots of 'stuff' going on in my life just now. Most of it not really ds related, but his behaviour atm is terrible. It has not been this bad for a long time. He is grouchy, grumpy, aggressive, angry- just awful.
Meltdowns are back with a vengeance. Last week he came back from school and announced he wanted to go swimming, dd agreed and I said yes. I went upstairs to get their stuff and as I was chatting to them said we would have our tea at the pool (as a treat) and then go swimming. He went into meltdown at this, shouting and crying saying he hated me, wanted to kill me, wanted to rip my arms off because I had made him so angry, all because he didn;t want his tea before the swim. He went over to the window and began climbing up onto the sill saying 'I'm going to throw myself out of the window because I don't even want life if I can't do what I want!' I had to drag him down while he was hitting me It is not nice to have your 6 yo threatening suicide
I don't know if the 'stuff' going on is affecting him. Things have actually just changed for the better but all the same it is change and even positive change can be disorientating at times.

Anyway, we never give up. 'Keep calm and carry on' is certainly the mot juste round here
We have (finally) got back on board with the vision therapy and the bribes are working (although only two days so far). He has also had a where's wally book for his birthday which he really loves looking at so we've been doing that too. Another change we have identified is that we have swapped from liquid behaviour balance to capsules, dh suggested last night maybe that has affected him, so I've just reordered the liquid which will be with us tomorrow.

Hi Pop, sorry things are still up and down for you.

Glad the vt has been positive for the last couple of days. We have (hopefully) cracked the vt 'blues' by having food available to munch on, me sitting next to him and using my phone to countdown how long to go and by ds telling me all about all the different Pokemon (yawn). I initially thought he should concentrate and only focus on the tasks but it seems to be easier for him to get through it if he is talking at the same time and taking his mind off it! He had complete meltdown when one task was changed for another that he had to do for 10 mins!

Pre-TH, when looking at different Omega products, I did a search on Behaviour Balance and found that lots of children had negative behaviour changes on it. Have the negative behaviour changes been since your ds has been taking it or only since you changed from the liquid?

Daftmaul- Good idea with food to eat while on vt and also think the timer might help too, thanks.
We started behaviour balance last July and had really great results with it and have continued to see benefits. The change to capsules was a few weeks ago, and his behaviour had already deteriorated a bit but has subsequently got worse. He actually prefers the liquid anyway so I will see if it helps.

Sorry to hear things are going badly Pop.

Hope changing back to the liquid helps......

Just counted the remaining behaviour balance capsules out and it looks like we must have started on them around the end of march which is earlier than I thought. His behaviour began to deteriorate at the beginning of April as far as we can remember so there's a good chance this has a lot to do with it! The behaviour deteriorated as the bb worked out of his system.
We have just looked through his homework folder and have noticed his writing has deteriorated also over this period and he is much less keen to read. His sensory seeking is terrible too- he is climbing all over us and really fidgety.
I can't wait for the bb to arrive now! Luckily it's usually very fast so hopefully we can get back on it tomorrow. I really, really, really, really hope it's that simple.
[massive fingers crossed emoticon]

Hope that it is that simple for you and ds pop (and it often is a case of trying diff meds/formulations IME)

Ds1 still doing very well. VT going ok, still got about 6 more weeks I think but we go on hols for a few days and am not taking laptop with us but ds1 needs a break and so do I!!!

He got 23 out of 24 on a timed times table quiz yesterday! He is sooo cross he got one wrong...he divided instead of mutiplying!

Got to have a meeting with the HT and teacher wrt his results from the STS assessment but, frankly, I am just going to sit and smile and let them take the credit Cant be bothered with it all, really.

For those of you who are struggling atm and dealing with difficult behaviour....Its amazing to me to think where ds1 was this time last year In Feb/march last year I was at the end of my tether BUT thanks to AIT, RRT and now TH he had gone from being 2/3 years behind his peers to "average" in 2 terms!! His confidence has grown, he is less anxious, eats better, sleeps better, finds physical stuff easier (riding a bike etc) and is no longer hyper sensitive to noise.

He is actually "above average" in reading comprehension....I honestly never thought I would be able to say/type those words wrt ds1.

A pre-school, 2 primary schools and countless HVs, paeds, sencos, teachers and TAs had all failed my son. And I include myself in that list too

Its not easy.

I know its not.

But it works...its takes time and effort, but it works.

x

Crossing fingers for you too, Pop.

ok, i have now finally found the time to read this really interesting thread and am looking for advise, firstly to see if you think ds would be suitable for programme and second if so where would I start.

Ds is not diagnosed but has some traits of aspergers. In short issues that we have are as follows;

1. Limited diet
2. Meltdowns
3. Wakes up sometimes really miserable
4. Seems to struggle with empathy
5. Is acting like a teenager in his attitude but is only 9!! ( this one may not re relevant but had to put it in!!!!!)
6. Struggles with opening packages and using a knife and fork
7. Can play roughly (maybe just a typical 9 year old boy)

He is exceptionally bright, flying academically at school, is popular & funny. Loves his cuddles and playing football.

Thoughts please....many thanks

Mary - Sounds like TH would help. You don't need a dx to do it.

You have 2 choices, either go to a TH clinic, or buy the brain food plan and try and follow it yourself at home.

If you can, I really recommend going to the new forest and seeing Robin.

Or you could email him / ring him to see what he thinks.

Mary, I agree with Indigo that it s worth giving TH a go.

I would start with the supplements, dietary changes and exercises anyway and you can decide whether you can afford want to also go to see Robin to take it further.

Well, ds came home from school today and announced that he got over 75% in his latest verbal reasoning paper having only got in the low 30% on ever previous paper! I am hoping it is not a one off!! Parents evening on Thursday so will be interesting to see if his teachers mention any changes since January.

Only 3 more stars to get on his vt Badvoc!!

Daft - great news re verbal reasoning!

When he gets his last star you then need to email Robin and he'll tell you what to do next. It'll probably be 6 mins of jump duction or auto slide.

Hate to break it to you, but my 2 have had to use almost all of their 100 runs :(

Well, I guess we will get our monies worth then - I think we have 83 more runs left!! I won't tell ds yet

I have ordered the book!! If nothing else this subject facinates me, I have been watching with interest all of your progress and for me the bottom line seems to be that if it works for some there must be something in it.

Its the first thing that I've seen that treats the cause rather than trying to control the symptoms, I am intrigued!!

Has anyone tried to implement each part of the programme at different times to see what makes the most difference for their child?

Welcome aboard marymary.
I think most of us would agree that it is the cumulative effect of all elements of the program that makes the difference but I guess it depends on your particular child.
For my ds, he already had a pretty good diet so I didn't need to change much there (just increased protein, esp at breakfast). But with introducing the exercises we certainly felt like there was a big improvement.
Have you tried Behaviour Balance DMG? We started that last summer and for ds, it had a huge positive impact. If you've read my recent posts you'll see that I suspect changing from liquid to capsules might have caused a deterioration in ds' behaviour and consequently impeded our progress with the TH plan. We have started back on the liquid yesterday and have cautious hopes that in a week or so we will see improvements.
However, behaviour balance hasn't worked for everyone (some have found it makes their dc's behaviour worse) but I'd say it's certainly worth a try. As far as the brain food plan goes, you have nothing to lose by giving it a go. At first, the plan is just following the kind of healthy diet we all should be eating, taking omega 3 (again, I think everyone should do this), limiting TV and doing a few very simple exercises- it's a complete no brainer. I'm sure every child would benefit from it, I know my dd (NT) has and she loves doing the exercises alongside her brother.

I'm sure every child would benefit from it - yes, the stairs exercise is helpful to all kids, not just kids with 'developmental delay syndrome', as are a healthy diet and supplements. :)

All 3 parts work together to improve the brain. It's certainly best to do all of it.....

Glad you're giving it a go Mary. You've got nothing to loose.....

Pop - fingers crossed for you.

I may be speaking too soon but dh and I both think ds was much more relaxed this morning . He had a shower without any screaming or shouting, got dressed without any fuss, waited for his breakfast sausages to be cooked without any stropping over how long they were taking, in general he was just sooo much nicer to be around.
We started back on the liquid behaviour balance on Tuesday so he's only had 5 doses so far, but all the same we really feel like it might be having an effect already. Hope, hope, hope for more improvements over the next few days.

Glad to hear that pop

Hope all is still going well, Pop?

Ds has got his 15 stars in vt. I assume it is just jump duction now - another 12 stars to get. Do I contact Robin now or when jump duction completed?

Badvoc, ds wants to know whether your goal he needs to beat is for the 15 stars or 30 stars? He has done 20 sessions so far

I think after jump duction is auto slide. Then you ring Robin......

DS is on jump duction and is still complaining that it hurts his eyes :(.

DDs eye tracking program hasn't arrived yet.....

Have taken her off dairy (well lactose) and think we're seeing an improvement.

Taking her to see a nutritionist on Thurs.

I managed to really annoy school by sending a misjudged email - and they were really horrible to me :(

Ds has done auto slide. I have emailed Robin anyway. Will see what he says.

Sorry you feel you have upset school. It's a fine line isn't it between pushing them and them feeling hassled? I seemed to spend my time at parents evening last night reminding tem that ds should be using a laptop and pointing out that since it had been recommended by their specialist teacher (in December) he had not used it once in school for his written work!

Have a meeting with Headmaster next week to discuss that and many other things! I can feel a list coming on...