Posted by Pfinstegg on May 22, 2003, at 19:24:02
In reply to Re: I feel crappy.....some info about brushing, posted by noa on May 22, 2003, at 9:52:34
I thought I'd just add my two cents' worth to the discussion on sensory integration. My son had a lot of non-specific learning disabilities, and a very immature nervous system- always several years behind his age. He didn't learn to read, write, or do arithmetic until about the fourth grade, and was always in "remedial sports" at school, never able to catch a ball or get selected for a team. He was so depressed and discouraged about school that he was determined to leave when he reached sixteen. We did lots of things to try and help him, but I think the most helpful was the sensory integration therapy. We went to a therapist three times a week for about 10 years, and also got all the equipment so that we could do it twice a day at home.
To make a long story short, the pediatric neurologist was stunned at how rapidly his nervous system matured- maybe it would have, anyway, but who can say? He has slowly become a skilled athlete- an expert skier, mountain-climber and country and Scottish dancer. And he is a year away from getting his doctorate in theoretical physics from Princeton. I must say I am still stunned about that last development- it's hard to imagine the boy who flunked arithmetic so at home with the complex mathematics of string theory!.
I have recently been reading a bit about the use of sensory integration for anxiety and depressive disorders. I think that it is well worth looking into. I feel certain that it played a role in helping my son's abnormal neurological "soft signs" disappear; perhaps it can have a beneficial effect in helping to reverse the hippocampal and frontal lobe abnormalities found in adult anxiety and depression. It's a wonderful topic for discussion here.
Pfinstegg
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:228111
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030517/msgs/228431.html