Sensory diet and Asperger's?

[sergeantmajor]

My ds is 11 with Asperger's, in the last year of his mainstream primary. A new member of staff has suggested that he may benefit from a "sensory diet".
...anyone know anything about sensory diets, or tried it for their kids?

My ds's sensory issues are:

• getting distressed and overwhelmed by social bustle and confrontation
• shutting out noise and vision when distressed (burying his head under my coat, for example)
• fidgeting a great deal when seated for schoolwork/homework, constantly rocking on his chair, or squatting on it instead of sitting
• terrible handwriting
• chewing nails (which doesn't bother me but seems to wind up teachers)

Would a sensory diet be appropriate for my ds's issues? When I googled it, it seemed to be for children with greater physical challenges.
Any info or opinion appreciated...

Our ds2 has had sensory diet activities. As you have no doubt seen it is nothing to do with food it is a range of sensory activities. An occupational therapist did ours. We have activities to do to help our ds with sitting, eating, settling to sleep etc and school also have a list of activities to do all based around lots of movement to help with attention span. Should say our ds has high functioning autism. Some things work very well Initially but then their affect seems to wear off so we give it a break for a while. I would certainly give it a go if you can get an OT assessment

DS1 has had an OT advised sensory diet. It can have good results, in some areas it was very good for him, particularly sensory responsive movement such as the rocking and fidgeting you described.

We found the rebounder (trampoline ) a break through. Our child noticed a bird while jumping and pointed which was remarkable. Other times after a while jumping would then sit down and do some drawing etc OT were happened to be round and noticed and remarked...oh my god...yes that?s sensory integration :)

Trampolines, swings, roundabouts or slides are all good vestibular activities

Chewing nails ,clothes and objects. They are seeking tactile and proprioceptive input through their mouths. You can try chewy tube.

Rebound Therapy

www.meetup.com/AutismUK/messages/boards/thread/33011782

Rgs

Autism Resource Centre - Early Intervention
www.meetup.com/AutismUK
twitter.com/AutismMeetup

Hope you'll forgive me if I mark my place - some very interesting links here, thanks; and thanks, OP, for starting the thread.

Thank you to all!

Latter on our child who enjoyed the jumping started doing bum jumps I.e. landing on bum and straight up again. We joined in and counted (voice and sign) each one to ten and celebrated.

So latter yesterday we brought down the 22? ocean drum and mallet and she would jump on the rebounder and hit the drum and again we would count and celebrate! We would try moving the drum higher and she would make the extra effort. Apart from the intense enjoyment , eye contact was maintained throughout which is also remarkable. Also when we first started the child's holding grip on the mallet and striking the drum was very weak. That all changed with time :)

Don't forget the sound of the ocean is great...and autistic kids are fascinated by the sound but what if the child is jumping and also interacting with the sounds.

ok so all the ideas came together early on when looking at Nordoff-Robbins (Music Therapy) pioneering work of Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins, Rebound therapy and temple Grandin\Michelle Hardy video. Simple ideas put together not only to deliver a fun time but improve the body and mind in so many ways. Cognitive multitasking as well as physical coordination, maintaining eye contact and attention span.

The most important thing in any therapy is the relationship between the child and therapist and anyone can be a therapist :)

Music Therapy - Nordoff-Robbins , Ocean Drum & Temple Grandin Rhythmic Drumming.

www.meetup.com/AutismUK/messages/boards/thread/34001142

Rgs

Autism Resource Centre - Early Intervention
www.meetup.com/AutismUK
twitter.com/AutismMeetup

Another great idea to swing the child in a lycra sheet. Two people hold other ends and swing. We got it on loan from OT. As well as the giant spinning red top and weighted blanket. Before all these new ideas DC needed daily swinging for a good 30 mins...who needs the gym :)

PolterGoose - Thanks for the feedback. The link only has some videos to aid the discussion (visualise) and its not a forum. Meetups are great to form local groups specialising in a focused area.

rgs