The space invader

[MojoLost]

DS is 4 and has GDD. His speech is very delayed (but coming along), his play skills have somewhat improved but they are extremely basic. My biggest concern at the moment are his social skills.

Just picture him invading other children?s space, touching them constantly, and gritting his teeth fists closes and flapping them in their face. It is no wonder that all the friends I somehow managed to help him make are fading away (at 4 yrs old people are no longer very accepting of this behaviour). I made friends with a really nice lady whose son is also 4 with learning difficulties, she liked DS and thought is would be good for them to get along, but even she doesn?t seem keen anymore because of this behaviour.

I feel like we are having to isolate ourselves from people more and more. I cannot expect people to cope with this behaviour. But this is not what I want. I?ve just been to my neighbor?s house, she has small kids. I had to follow DS constantly to avoid problems and allow my other little son to get at least some social interaction.

Why does he do this? He is a very sociable little boy and I think he is desperate to make contact with other children but doesn?t know how to. How can I teach him to behave appropriately? How can I explain to him not to touch children like this. This is really getting me down, I feel so depressed. It doesn?t happen sporadically, it happens always. Please help.

heres one fave of his

another

barney

thomas

here

here

another

another that should be enough for now lol

oh wow! Thank you so much bubblagirl. What a wonderful list of sites. Will have a look at them later today.
I wasn't able to login until now so sorry for not thanking you sooner.

Re the psychomotricity group, don't let the word fool you LOL, it's nothing sophisticated. They basically do very similar activities to what an OT does, but in a group. The main emphasis is to work on coordination and body awareness. For me DS's most important therapy is his OT and SALT really.

Mojo, another possibility could be visual-spatial issues. Some research points to certain behaviours such as hand-flapping and constant touching as the child's reaction to poor perception of depth and/or self in space. A behavioral optometrist can assess this for you.

HI jabber, thank you for mentioning that.
I have been told that DS has visual-spatial issues so you are right, this may have something to do with it. Will mention it to his therapist next time I see her. The strange thing is that gross motor skills have really improved. I can take him to a playground with all sorts of ramps, bridges, etc and he can pretty much negotiate his way through things. I thought that maybe this was an indication that his visual-spatial issues are fine now.

DH and I are very tactile, huggy, touchy people with our kids as well. And I wonder if maybe we need to reduce our physical contact with him a bit. Maybe he's getting the wrong message.

Yoked prism therapy can work wonders with this. Ds1 is doing it right now.

my ds has great gross motor skills but can be clumsy at tiems as has no spacial awareness he'll walk into parked cars, people, walls, signs i have to remind him all the time to look around when walking keep head up off the lines on the path and look where he is going

he is so easily distracted and relies on me to guide him although with age it is improving slightly and we do a spot the sign game going into town so he is aware of whats around him

we haven't been offered any sort of help to help him with spacial awareness

we are very cuddly people, but its a need for my ds he has a thing of putting hands over my face or something if he is confused or upset is him placing hands on my face somewhere but again its improving with speech and age

sometimes with other children its a case there too close or there invading his space so its just knowing when to remove or move him further away but it is so much better than it was 6 mths ago as his gradually learning how to interract with other by pre school 1-1 doing games with him and other children in small group and getting him to use there names and to interract properly with help

jabber, just googled yoked prism therapy, I had never heard of it. It sounds extremely interesting. My DS has the a brain injury which is more pronounced on the left side of the brain, the right side of his body being weaker. I will definitely look into this, thank you.

bubbla: my ds is clumsy as well but doesn't walk into things as such. The space invading that he does to children is definitely on purpose, it isn't clumsiness. So I am inclined to think that it is more a behaviour/impulse issue.

Much as people who are blind use touch as an important sense, some children do too. I'm very touch-averse so the opposite, but I've worked with children who encounter the whole world through touch, even if their eyes work. Maybe to him, touching a child is his way of finding out what they are and what they are like? You use eyes and ears to do this, but if those bits aren't connected up properly in his brain yet, then maybe touch and physical movement is how he makes sense of everything.

Not an answer, but a possible explanation. Difficult to know what to suggest, if so, as not touching might be like you or I having to close our eyes and ears every time we meet someone. How to get him to touch more appropriately and with consent?...hmm...

yes ds did this on purpose when younger too thats when we introduced the shaking hands and he did seem to grow out of the need to do it but could be that his understanding came along enough not to need to do it

i guess sometimes its not so much we'll ever understand all actions but just work with it and make it more pleasant and be taught how to do it gently or find another way of interacting

it can be so confusing for them and us cant it