Archive for Vestibular System

Therapeutic Listening: It’s Not Just About Sound

May 3, 2009 Rachel Dyspraxia, Hearing, Occupational Therapy, Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Sensory Processing Issues, Therapeutic Listening, Vestibular System, Visual/Spatial Skills

Last week, my OT gave me some written information explaining how neuro-typical people process sound and why Therapeutic Listening might be helpful to people with sensory processing issues. One of the articles, A Brief Introduction to Therapeutic Listening, Vital Links 2006, was especially helpful. I’ll do my best to summarize the information from that article and to share my responses. 

Listening: It’s Not Easy
Reading about how neuro-typical people take in and interpret sound gave me a profound sense of the difficulties that Aspies have with auditory stimuli.

Both consciously and unconsciously, human beings constantly monitor the auditory environment. It’s a basic survival skill. For a neuro-typical person, the process of locating and selecting which sounds merit investigation is largely unconscious. Therefore, other pathways in the brain are free to perform other functions. On a conscious level, a neuro-typical person takes the auditory information the brain has unconsciously selected, listens to it, makes choices about which sounds have priority, and interprets these sounds accordingly.

This basic neuro-typical process feels quite foreign to me. I’m not sure how much unconscious locating and selecting I do with sound. Very little, it seems. No wonder I get so tired! Some of the other pathways in my brain can’t attend to other things because my unconscious doesn’t give them a break. Almost all my processing is conscious. It feels like the only unconscious responses I give to sound are to defend against it or to become very unnerved by it.

For me, all sounds come in at a very similar volume (and thus seem to have a similar level of importance), and when I attempt to locate sound, I often look in the wrong place. For instance, this morning, two guys were on our roof fixing our chimney, and they were having a conversation. I was outside, on the other side of the house, and I could hear some of the words. For about a half hour, I was sure that the sound was coming from the apartment on my right, when it was actually coming from my house on my left!

As for consciously attending to some sounds, but not to others—under most circumstances, I can’t. I just give my attention to all of them. Sometimes, when I listen to many people talking at once, I hear a jumble of words in which I can glean different phrases, but I can’t put the meanings together. At other times, the sound of many people talking just comes into my brain as undifferentiated noise.

I can prioritize and select sounds only in very structured environments. The purpose and the organization of the group have to be clear. For example, at my karate dojo, I gave most of my attention to my sensei, since she was my teacher and kept the group focused. In well-facilitated business meetings, with clear agendas, I was able set priorities about where to put my attention. At the store where I work, I was once able to attend to one conversation rather than another, but only because the space was very big and otherwise quiet.

Even in the most structured situation, however, I find that listening and keeping up with the flow of the conversation is very hard work.

How Our Ears Work: The Cochlear and Vestibular Systems
Remember in high school, when we learned about the inner ear? I remember the cochlea, which looks like a snail shell and controls hearing. But there is more to the story. The inner ear also consists of three semicircular canals, plus the utricle and the saccule, all of which constitute the vestibular system—the system that controls movement, balance, and spatial orientation. Not surprisingly, the cochlear and vestibular systems are intimately connected. Our bodies use the same (amazingly tiny) osseous labyrinth for both systems. In fact, the cochlear and vestibular systems use the same cranial nerve for sending information to the brain, and they exchange information all along their neurological pathways.

During my sensory assessment, it became clear that in addition to my difficulties filtering auditory input, I have deficits in each facet of my vestibular system: movement, balance, and spatial orientation. I have moderate dyspraxia when performing tasks that involve balance and moving my body through space. For instance, I had a lot of difficulty learning different forms in karate. I would have to draw them out visually and then memorize the pattern. My sensei would keep urging me to just feel each form in my body, but it was very difficult. Sometimes, she would even have us do katas with our eyes closed, just to help us feel the forms inside us. Unfortunately, these exercises generally resulted in my becoming frustrated and rooted to the floor. It was either that or become completely dizzy and fall down.

As for spatial orientation…What spatial orientation? If you need directions to anywhere in the world, just send me an email. If I tell you to go left, you should go right. If I tell you to head due east (wherever that is), you should head due west. It works like a charm (except for those random, statistically insignificant moments in which I am correct).

In the final analysis, the cochlear system, which allows us to hear, is also involved with spatial orientation. Hearing allows us to become oriented to the world around us, while the vestibular system gives us information about where we are on the ground. Since both hearing and spatial orientation are basic survival skills, it should come as no surprise that those of us with auditory and vestibular deficits feel pretty anxious and disoriented. A lot.

Isn’t it a relief to know that these feelings have their origins in our neurology, rather than in some deep, dark, psychological abyss? It is for me.

How Does Therapeutic Listening Work?
Since I have problems with my auditory and vestibular systems, I was very happy to learn that Therapeutic Listening works by engaging both.

At the moment, I am listening to the “modulated” CDs. I loved the Mozart for Modulation CD, and I’m currently working with a modulated Vivaldi CD. The people who create these CDs pass the music through a filter. Sometimes the higher frequencies are allowed to come through; sometimes the lower frequencies are allowed to come through. This type of modulation exercises both the auditory and vestibular portions of the inner ear. It also works the middle ear muscles that help control our ability to attend to our auditory environment and to organize sensory data. In general, these benefits should result in better overall sensory processing and self-modulation.

At present, I’m listening to my CD for 20-30 minutes, twice a day. I’ll do so for a minimum of 10-12 weeks. Some people continue the therapy for six months or more, and others make the therapy an ongoing part of their sensory diet. I hope that the therapy is effective for me, and that I’ll be able to include it in my sensory diet. I thrive on consistency, and besides, I really love the music.

Ultimately, the purposes of Therapeutic Listening are to help me use more than one sense at a time, to reduce auditory overload, and to improve the deficits in my vestibular system. To get used to multitasking, I engage in movement while listening to the CD. Generally, while I listen, I wash dishes, fold laundry, do my artwork, or work in the garden. When I’m not listening to the CD, I do activities that engage both my auditory system (such as singing) and my vestibular system (such as rocking, walking, or bicycling).

Walking, biking, and gardening also provide joint compression and reduce stress. I’ve even noticed myself toe-walking lately. Because Therapeutic Listening is hard work for my body, it’s important to have these kind of grounding activities.

Is There a Down Side to Therapeutic Listening?
At the moment, for me, there seems to be one. I’ve been getting a lot of migraines. Fortunately, I’ve figured out why. I’m resisting using more than one sense at a time. When I’m listening to the CD and making my lunch, the combination annoys me.

Okay, it doesn’t just annoy me. It makes me irritable. Being an Aspie, I’m just not wired to multitask. Using one sense at a time allows me to focus on a project and to enjoy the process. I get so much accomplished that way. I love it. And I’m beginning to love that part of myself that keeps working, and working, and won’t let go until something beautiful comes out of it.

But I also want to be in the world. Being at home gives me much needed solitude and respite, but I lose perspective when I’m alone for too many days on end. Besides, I find people very interesting, and I like them, and I like helping them. And then, of course, I would also like to re-engage basic survival skills, like buying my food at the grocery store, without it wiping me out for the rest of the day.

To be able to do these things, I have to learn to use more than one sense at a time. So, instead of long, measured strides, I’m taking baby steps. Baby steps! At my age. With my education. And my work experience. And my talents. And all those other things I’ve used to mask my utter confusion in life.

Baby steps. Okay. I’ll try it.

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

4 comments

Sleeping, Listening, and My Fourth OT Visit

April 15, 2009 Rachel Anxiety, Hearing, Occupational Therapy, Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Sensory Processing Issues, Sleep, Therapeutic Listening, Vestibular System, Weighted Blankets

Note: For posts about previous visits, including my sensory assessment, see the Occupational Therapy category, to the right of this post.

After receiving so many wonderful ideas from all of you about my sleep resistance dilemma, I went to see my OT on Monday. The first thing she had me do was to write out a list of objectives for the therapy. A list! I was so happy.

Objectives

  • To stop resisting sleep by eating and watching TV.
  • To reduce auditory overload. (Auditory overload seems to be the most intense for me, followed very closely by visual and vestibular overload.)
  • To do the grocery shopping one day per week, every week. (My husband does most of the grocery shopping these days.)
  • To deal better with changes to my routine. (I don’t get upset with people anymore when plans change, but I still get very stuck and have difficulty adapting.)
  • To keep up with OT tasks, such as exercise, singing, and drumming.

We began working on the top two issues on the list: sleep resistance and auditory overload.

Sleep Resistance
We talked about my sleep issues from a sensory point of view. My OT feels very strongly that I need to reframe the way I see winding down, ending the day, going to bed, and sleeping. Right now, I resist all of those things. She said that I need to frame all of them as being very positive. Sleep is the time that our bodies regenerate cells. Sleep provides rest for the immune system and for the nervous system. Both systems are key to the health of the body and to the enjoyment of the daytime hours.

We then discussed ways to take care of my sensory needs so that I don’t try to calm myself by watching TV and eating too much. It’s clear to me that what calms my nervous system is a lot of physical, tactile pressure, like the pressure of a weighted blanket or the vibrations of the Thumper. On Passover, I fell asleep under two weighted blankets—30 pounds of pressure. Since I’d like to start going to sleep earlier, my OT suggested that in the evening, when I imagine the best possible place in the world to be, I imagine lying underneath 30 pounds of weighted blankets at 10:15 pm! Talk about reframing. Given that lying under weighted blankets feels a little bit like heaven, I think I can do it.

As we talked about the process of replacing one routine with another, my OT was very adamant that I not completely ditch the old way of doing things until I add something more powerful to it. My tendency is to try to jettison an entire routine before I’ve started on a new one. The results are usually not good. So this time, for example, I will not take away chocolate without giving myself something that works better. In other words, I need to respect that I am in a transition. Transitions are difficult, but I’m willing to put some energy into this one.

I’ve decided to make some changes. Over the past couple of days, I’ve taken a look at my daily list and given more attention to the times for my late afternoon and evening tasks. According to the list, I have different self-care tasks and chores to start by 4 pm, by 6 pm, and by 8 pm. Up to now, I’ve been getting the tasks done, somehow, but I’ve paid virtually no attention to the time at which I get started. For example, sometimes the dishes get done at midnight, even though according to the list, they should get done by around 8 o’clock.

In addition to keeping better track of my present tasks, I added a new task, which is to make myself a very weird but useful concoction of mashed bananas, soy powder, and tahini at 10 pm. I used to eat this little concoction when I was on an elimination diet to weed out food allergies and sensitivities. It always helped me to feel full so that I could fall asleep. So, on Monday night and Tuesday night, I had this lovely dish and also allowed myself a small piece of dark chocolate. On Monday night, I feel asleep at 10:30 pm, woke at 4:20 am, and then meditated myself back to sleep until 6 am, when my alarm went off. On Tuesday night, I fell asleep a bit later, around 11:15 pm, woke up again at 4:20 am (not sure why, except that perhaps the heating system was coming back on), and then fell back to sleep until about 7 am. Not too bad at all. I didn’t watch TV either night.

I can see that this whole transition is going to be a one-day-at-a-time proposition.

Therapeutic Listening
After our conversation about sleep, my OT and I went into the gym and began the Therapeutic Listening program. The goal of the program is to help me filter out sounds in my environment so that they don’t feel like they are all rushing in at one high volume. It involves using a special headset and a series of CDs.

While lying under a heavy weighted blanket, while standing up on a swing and rocking laterally, and while rocking laterally on a peanut-shaped physioball, I listened to part of a CD called Mozart for Modulation. The makers of the Therapeutic Listening program take pieces of music and change them in ways that work the muscles in your ears. The music is supposed to be in the “background” to make your ears reach for some of the sounds, so I heard it at a low volume (from 2-4 on a CD player, without any bass boost), and I could still talk to the OT without needing to speak loudly. I was supposed to listen to the music while not actually concentrating on it (not so easy for an Aspie), so my OT had me swinging and rocking while I talked to her about, well, whatever—my daughter as a baby, what her sleep patterns were like back then, and a lot of other stuff I don’t remember.

Listening, talking, and moving were a lot to do at once, and I felt pretty tired and disoriented by the end of the session. My system really resists that amount of multitasking. But the OT said that the point of the therapy is to ask my brain to attend to several things at once without getting overloaded. I overloaded this time, but the goal is to begin to reduce the overload, so I’m willing to commit to this program and see whether it helps.

I brought home the CD and special headphones. I don’t have a portable CD player, and my OT said it was okay to listen to the CD on my computer, as long as I wasn’t watching the screen. (She said that, under no circumstances, should I listen to the CD while driving or watching anything on a screen. I don’t know what happens exactly, but it doesn’t sound good.) I was supposed to combine movement with listening to the CD, but right now, the only way to move and listen at the same time is to put the computer at the foot of my bike while I’m working out. I really don’t want to do that, because I love the routine of biking and singing my favorite songs. My OT agrees that I shouldn’t interrupt that routine.

So yesterday, after work, I came home, got myself organized, lay down under my weighted blanket, and listened to 20-30 minutes of Mozart for Modulation until I fell asleep! I really enjoyed lying under my weighted blanket in the late afternoon and listening to the CD. It was the first time that resting felt like a good thing, because my mind was occupied with something other than my own constant thinking. Since it feels so nice to me, my OT said that once a day, I should listen to the whole CD while resting, and then listen to it again at some other point, while I’m moving around. Moving around can include walking, eating a meal, knitting, making mobiles, or doing the dishes. The goal is to activate and integrate the visual, auditory, and vestibular systems. The CD is nearly 75 minutes long, so I’ll need to work up to listening to the full CD twice a day.

[Correction: I just heard from my OT, who reads my blog. She said that I only need to listen to the CD for 30 minutes, twice a day, with at least three hours between listening sessions. She said that the beginner CDs are 30 minutes long, and that she had forgotten how much more music was on the one she gave me.]

Of course, I finished off the OT visit with the Thumper, and this time, I could feel the vibrations in my teeth! Very cool.

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

8 comments

My Third OT Visit

April 1, 2009 Rachel Gravitational Insecurity, Occupational Therapy, Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Sensory Processing Issues, Vestibular System

Here I am with another update about the fun and interesting things my OT is having me do. (For posts about previous visits, including my sensory assessment, see the Occupational Therapy category, to the right of this post.)

For my third visit, I arrived in slightly better repair than I had for the previous ones. I was coming down with a cold, but I felt pretty grounded, and I’d actually enjoyed the drive. The OT spent a little while catching up on how I’d been doing, which didn’t take long, since she reads my blog! We decided that I should abandon the whole Therapressure brushing/bean bag/soft fabric therapy. She usually begins with the Therapressure protocol because, in kids, tactile defensiveness can be a big obstacle. For me, though, it’s not such a big problem, and it wasn’t worth the resistance it was triggering.

That issue being decided, we went into the gym. Yay!

First things first, of course. She ran the Thumper on my back for a few minutes. Pure heaven. If she’d run it for the whole hour, it would have been worth the drive. Then, she had me stand and watch a big red ball swing back and forth. I could track it with my eyes and was even allowed to move my head this time. Easy enough.

Next, on a big ceiling-to-floor whiteboard, she drew a picture of a sun over a house. She had me stand 10 feet away and then walk forward and backward while looking at the picture of the house. I walked forward just fine, but I got a little disoriented walking backward. I was afraid I was going to walk back too far and bump into something. She suggested I just count my steps going forward so that I wouldn’t worry. That solution worked fine.

Then, she asked me to walk forward looking at the picture of the house, and backward looking at the picture of the sun, moving my head up or down as needed. I did this exercise several times. It seemed okay, except that I started to notice that I was getting overloaded. At this point, we stopped and did a couple of grounding exercises. I did a hand press by pushing my palms against each other with my arms akimbo, and held the position for several seconds. Then, I did a hand pull by clasping the fingers of one hand with the fingers of the other hand, palms together, and pulling. Those two exercises helped. A lot.

The next exercise was great fun. I sat on a big peanut-shaped physioball and rocked from side to side. During this time, the OT drew a picture of waves under the picture of the house. Then, she put on some great Native American drum music. She asked me to focus on the picture of the sun for a few moments, then on the picture of the house, and then on the picture of the waves, all the while rocking laterally to the drum music. I love, love, LOVE rocking laterally, I love, love, LOVE hearing drum music, and I can hyper-focus on a visual like I’ve been doing it all my life (which, actually, I have been doing all my life), so this exercise was well within my comfort zone.

So there I was, rocking to drum music and focusing on visuals, and having a great time until the session was nearly over. Of course, I had to get grounded with the Thumper treatment again. How else was I to get in my car? I was so relaxed by the time it was done that I had trouble imagining how I was going to get up off the mat–especially because my head was on an insanely soft piece of fabric.

The point of all these exercises, as I understand it, is to help me a) expand my sense of space by moving in different directions, and b) overcome some of my gravitational insecurity by moving my eyes in a different direction than the rest of my body.

Since my OT reads this blog, she saw that I’ve been wanting to relearn Torah cantillation. So, for homework, she suggested that I put a big paragraph of Hebrew text on the wall, and then:

1. Walk forward and backward as I sing the words from right to left, going from top to bottom. I’m a little dizzy just thinking about it, but I’ll give it a try.

2. Sit and rock laterally as I sing the Hebrew text from right to left, going from top to bottom. This exercise sounds more inviting.

She also suggested that I drum and rock from side to side, so I’m getting my djembe out of the corner and doing some music with it. Between the singing and the drumming, I’ll get lots of vibrations going in my body, which will be soothing to my vestibular system, especially when I rock laterally.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

4 comments

My Second OT Visit

March 29, 2009 Rachel Making Art, Occupational Therapy, Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Sensory Processing Issues, Therapeutic Brushing, Vestibular System, Weighted Blankets, Weighted Vests

Note: For information about my first OT visit, see my previous post.

For my second appointment, I showed up slightly less of a wreck than I did at the first, but still in need of some grounding. This time, the OT used the Thumper, a big vibrating machine that she ran back and forth over my back. The vibration was so strong that I could feel it inside my ears. It was another piece of heaven.

Once I got more grounded, we talked about how the past week’s activities had gone and discussed new activities to try in the coming week.

Therapeutic Brushing
After hearing about my negative experience with the brushing, the OT agreed that I should discontinue it. Instead of the brushing, we tried using soft bean bags and tapping them on my arms and legs. It felt okay at the office, but when I tried it at home, it felt distinctly like hitting myself, which is a trigger. She had also mentioned that I might try using a soft fabric that I find comforting. I have tried using the velvet fabrics I have, and they feel okay on my arms, but I still resist the whole activity. Trauma stuff, I think. Anyway, I do what I can.

Drawing an Infinity Sign
When I told my OT how frustrated I felt drawing the infinity sign, she suggested that I just imagine a large one on the wall and track it with my eyes. I’ve been doing that every day, and it feels really great. I can actually move my eyes without moving my head! After 50 years of doing it the other way, that really amazes me. I even find myself playing around with the exercise at work. I’ll look at something, and then shift my eyes to another object without moving my head. Everyone is so busy looking at all the objects in the store that no one notices the strange woman in the linen department doing eye exercises.

Learning the Cross-Crawl
At this visit, my OT taught me something called a “cross crawl,” in which I lift my right hand and then use it to touch my upraised left knee, and then use my left hand to touch my upraised right knee. The point is to cross the center line in my body in order to get comfortable with the parts of my body working independently. I find this particular exercise very easy, as it reminds me of various karate exercises that also work with crossing the body’s center line.

Singing
After hearing that the vibrations from the Thumper felt like they were inside my ears, the OT told me to sing every day. She said the vibrations would help to activate and soothe my vestibular system, which controls balance and movement, and is based in the inner ear. I always sing when I work out anyway, so this has been an easy one to practice each day. I also want to relearn Torah cantillation. In fact, the book and a small keyboard have been sitting in my loft, beckoning me for months. I’m hoping to add cantillation to my OT routine at some point.

Proprioceptive Activities and Late-Night Snacking
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the propriocetive system provides information about the relative positions of the parts of the body. Engaging the proprioceptive system includes how we feel the joints in our body and the kind of pressure we put on them. The right amount of pressure is very soothing. 

I find that I do a number of activities to engage the proprioceptive system, such as using a weighted blanket and weighted vests, bicycling, taking walks, doing my artwork, and fidgeting with whatever object is handy. I wondered whether my tendency to eat a lot before bedtime is also related to my need for proprioceptive activities. My OT said that chewing on things engages the joints in the jaw in a powerful way, which is why I like chewy, crunchy things at bedtime. I’m using them to calm myself down.

I don’t particularly like using food for this purpose on a regular basis, and she suggested that I try a different proprioceptive activity when I feel food cravings without being hungry. It’s going to take a while to work out of the habit of using food to calm myself at night, but the amount I eat seems to be diminishing as I do other activities. Last night, for instance, I spent some time doing my artwork and ended up eating a lot less than usual before bedtime.

When all is said and done, I’m enjoying the process of occupational therapy. Because of my executive dysfunction, I’m still having difficulty consistently working the exercises into my daily routine. But I’ll get there.

2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

10 comments

Stimming

February 16, 2009 Rachel Childhood, Sensory Processing Issues, Stimming, Vestibular System

Autism Wiki defines stimming as “a repetitive body movement that self-stimulates one or more senses in a regulated manner.” Stimming can involve one or more of the five senses, the vestibular system (which controls balance, movement, and spatial orientation), and the proprioceptive system (which provides information about the relative positions of the parts of the body).

Stimming is generally an unconscious nervous system response. In psychiatric terms, it is a kind of stereotypy, a continuous movement without apparent purpose (although it certainly serves many not-so-apparent purposes). It is one of the symptoms of autism listed in the DSM-IV, although many autistic people do not stim.

Common Forms of Stimming
There are many different types of stimming. The following list provides some examples:

  • Visual: Blinking, looking at fingers, staring at a light, lining up or spinning objects
  • Auditory: Snapping fingers, humming, grunting, echolalia (repeating words spoken by another person), repeating rote phrases
  • Tactile: Scratching, touching objects, biting nails, twisting hair
  • Taste: Licking objects or placing them in mouth
  • Smell: Smelling one’s own body, objects, or other people
  • Vestibular: Rocking (back and forth or from side to side), spinning, pacing, jumping
  • Proprioceptive: Wrapping arms inside shirts, hand flapping, toe walking, tapping fingers

Some also count perseveration (our Aspie fixation on one or more special interests) as a form of stimming.

My Childhood Stims
For me, stimming is a mode of self-soothing. It helps to calm my senses and acts as a barrier to stimulation from the outside world.

When I first started learning about Asperger’s and saw references to stimming, I couldn’t believe my eyes. So many of the behaviors were ones that I had manifested as a child and some had even come along with me into adulthood. My childhood home was constantly overstimulating: loud voices, poor boundaries, erratic behavior, and a TV that came on at 6 am and went off at 11 pm. So I needed a lot of soothing.

Here are some of my childhood stims:

  • I would lie in bed and squint at the light coming from the ceiling fixture in the center of my room. I enjoyed seeing all the little rays of light that seemed to shoot out in all directions.

  • I loved lining up objects, such as different types of candy, dolls, coins, and baseball cards.

  • I liked spinning the wheels on my Tonka trucks far more than I enjoyed playing with the trucks themselves. I still like looking at bright spinning things.

  • I constantly twisted my hair by winding it around my fingers. It used to drive my parents up the wall. One of the recurrent imperatives from my childhood was “Stop playing with your hair!” But I never gave it up. I mainly loved the softness of my hair and how the ends felt against the tips of my fingers.

  • Remember those big fat green number 2 pencils from grammar school? The kind where you could see the lead on the bottom because there was no eraser? Every day in class, I used to chew on the ends of those pencils and lick the lead on the bottom. Between the lead-based paint and the pencil lead, it’s amazing that I have any brain cells left.

  • I always enjoyed wrapping my arms and hands inside my shirt or sweater. It made me feel very secure. I do a more adult version of this stim now by putting my hands in my pockets when I’m out walking. When I wear a skirt or jacket without pockets, my poor arms and hands feel forlorn and just don’t know what to do with themselves. It makes me very nervous.

  • I loved to tap my fingers and do complex patterns, alternating fingers and counting in different sequences. This stim is another that pops up in my adult life from time to time.

My Adult Stims
Here are my adult stims, most of which I do only at home:

  • Toe walking and hand flapping. I have no memory of doing either of these stims as a child, although I can vividly recall the day my principal told me to start walking by putting my heel down first. Clearly, I was walking toe first, but I soon stopped. (I was a very compliant child.)

  • Twisting my hair (even though it’s pretty short now).

  • Counting the buttons on the TV remote control by tapping them lightly with my fingers in different patterns, pressing my fingers against the sides of each one, and figuring out how many even sets there are. (This stim drives my husband nuts when we’re watching a movie. He generally takes away the remote control and holds my hand instead.)

  • Eating foods with soothing textures, like almond butter, peanut butter, and tahini. I’ve been noticing lately that it’s not the flavor I’m after with these foods, but the texture. It’s the tactile experience that makes the stim work.

  • Riding my bicycle on a stationary stand. I like the repetitive circular motion.

  • Looking at a “magic wand” with lights that spin when I push a button.

  • Organizing objects of any kind, any time, anywhere.

The last time I saw my OT, she mentioned that engaging the proprioceptive system includes putting different sorts of pressure on the joints. The right amount of pressure is very soothing. For this reason, weighted blankets, weighted vests, and other objects are often very calming to autistic people. I asked her whether toe-walking is soothing because of the pressure it puts on the joints, and she said, yes, that toe-walking puts more pressure on the joints per square inch than walking heel first. Hand flapping is also calming for much the same reason.

On the advice of my OT, I’ve been wearing a weight on each of my ankles, and I’m finding it very calming and grounding. I’ve also ordered a weighted blanket and a weighted vest. I’ll post more about using them once they’ve come in the mail and I’ve had a chance to try them out.

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

16 comments