October is National Sensory Awareness Month!
Thanks to both www.sifocus.com, who started Sensory Awareness Day many years ago, and to Kathleen Morris, a paediatric speech pathologist who started this wonderful magazine. Kathleen Morris has worked hard for all children with sensory issues – so much so that Sensory Awareness Day has gone from being a one day event to a full month of awareness!
I received an interesting letter recently, written by a very talented Physical Therapist (P.T.) who has Sensory Integration and Praxis Test (S.I.P.T.) training. She expressed concern that our site was not sending the right message - that there are more than just Occupational Therapists (O.T.) who can help children with sensory issues, sensory dysfunction and or sensory processing disorder. She is right!
Allow me to explain. Since we established this foundation, it is our strongest commitment that all who come to our site, both parents and professionals, have research based information to support what is being said. We struggle everyday to talk about this disorder with so many who say it does not exist. We want to make sure that what we say is backed by research.
It is our hope that in the near future we can expand our site to include all the therapies that can help our children. There are many incredibly talented therapists, including speech pathologists such as the amazing Kathleen Morris above (www.sifocus.com), and P.T.s that are S.I.P.T. trained, and who can help our children. There are also many specialists who do not have S.I.P.T. training and they too are helping children with sensory issues.
What we carefully and meticulously decided on as a board is that we would first set strong roots for our foundation. Money and time are limited, but we wanted to be sure that you have information from those doing the research. As time goes on, we hope to continue to open doors and windows to all who are doing incredible work for our children.
It is always amazing me to me how so many say this disorder is not real and yet at moments such as this and the note from the P.T. I see how highly sensitive we all are. Anything that is not regulated can overload our cup of tolerance.
Our goal is to build bridges between and with therapists, parents, and all who are touched by SPD, so that one day a true team of collaboration will exist, where no one piece of the pie is greater than the other. Until then, the child will always pay the price. It is my hope as the President of this Foundation to try to build those bridges and allow a true melting pot of strength and knowledge about this disorder and never leave anyone thinking they are not valued. Anyone doing anything for children with SPD is a hero in my eyes.
SPD Canada is going to have its first workshop this month, as listed on the front page of the website. We are truly excited – and thanks to the folks at www.spdfoundation.net we have been able to debut a wonderful movie ‘Autistic-Like’ www.autisticlike.com. As well, we will have two top Occupational Therapists as speakers, who will share some of the current research being done on SPD.
After watching the movie Autistic Like I had an “aha” moment that I would like to share with you: I think it is time we have a paradigm shift. So many times I have heard our son described as “autistic like” or as having “autistic tendencies”, and yet when I look up the definition of autism, our son has none of those tendencies. Here is what I think we should try to change:
Our children do not have “autistic like tendencies”, however some children with autism have SPD TENDENCIES!!!!!
What has often been labelled as autism is, in fact, sensory behaviours and reactions that have been labelled under the ‘autism’ dome. I would like to see a better definition of how we label what we see. In our son, and for so many children with SPD, what is seen as ‘autistic like’ is, in fact, sensory reaction. Not ‘autistic like’ behaviours. I think there is no greater time and no greater month than now to change how and what we say. Now is the time for a paradigm shift to properly identify what we see.
In the movie, Dr. Stanley Greenspan: “There are many children with autism that have SPD, but there are just as many children with SPD who do not have autism.” What a great quote!
Time for change; time for open collaboration. I wish all of you a wonderful sensory month – and to all of you who are helping and advocating for our children, on behalf of SPD Canada we thank you for giving our children a voice.
Together we will all build the necessary bridges to change.
Cheers
Lori Fankhanel