Tag: Senses

It’s Podcast Launch Day! Welcome to the Just My MomSense Podcast

On By justmymomsenseIn PodcastLeave a comment

Today’s the day.

After months (ok, maybe years) of thinking about it, planning it, second-guessing it, and finally recording it, the Just My MomSense Podcast is officially live!

Writing has always been my comfort zone, but after doing the Dillo’s Diz podcast for the past 7 years and spending a year and a half co-hosting the Magical Mommy Monday podcast, I felt like this was a good next step. I’m excited to share more stories, highlight helpful resources, and talk to experts or other parents!

The Pilot and first official episode are now live! You can listen here by clicking on the Podcast tab on the menu or wherever you listen to podcasts! A new episode will drop on Wednesday and continue weekly.

This isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about sharing what I’ve learned (and am still learning).

Thank you for being here at the start. I’m so excited for what’s to come.

It’s Too Loud!

On By justmymomsenseIn Uncategorized1 Comment

A big trigger for ‘J’ are sounds. He absolutely hates when our dog (or my parents’ dog) does her alert bark. If someone rings the doorbell, of course our dog is going to respond and let us know. Although she feels like she is protecting us, ‘J’ sees it as something that is being done to him.

One of my first red flags was seeing ‘J’ react to his sister or cousin crying. At first I thought he was just being empathetic (and I’m sure there is an aspect of that) but over time I felt like there was more behind it. It’s so hard to watch him react to their crying, especially if we’re in a car or somewhere else where he can’t remove himself from the situation. It completely overwhelms him and he cries and screams to express the hurt it’s causing him.

I think because he has started to realize that things that are too loud are overwhelming, he describes certain situations as “too loud” or “too big.” At this point we are try to work with him to understand what can soothe him in these situations. Sometimes it’s playing a Super Why game on our phones and other times it’s having a snack. Unfortunately sometimes we just have to wait it out, which is the hardest one of all.

In The Out-Of-Sync Child, Carol Stock Kranowitz discusses determining if a child has an issue with each sense. For the auditory sense, she details overrresponsitivity, underresponsitivty and sensory craving. Although I can relate ‘J’ to a few different aspects, one line stuck out for me: “If he can’t get away from the hubbub, he may raise his own voice, hollering, La-La-La-La! to counteract noise, rather like fighting fire with fire.” If ‘J’ doesn’t respond by crying to a sound that is bothering him, he starts screaming or talking louder to try to deal with the overwhelming sound.

Although these are my experiences, Sensory Spectacle has a video on their YouTube page that explains why some people may cry at sudden noises:

 

 

 

Sensory Spectacle Resources

On By justmymomsenseIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I am so thankful for Becky Lyddon, of Sensory Spectacle, for taking the time out of her busy schedule to be a guest blogger this weekend.

Sensory Spectacle is working to bring awareness to the Sensory Processing Difficulties community. Although based in the UK, they are providing information that spreads throughout the world.

If you missed this weekend’s 3 Part series from Becky, please click below for links:

Supporting a Sensory Lifestyle for People with SPD Part 1

Supporting a Sensory Lifestyle for People with SPD Part 2

Supporting a Sensory Lifestyle for People with SPD Part 3

Make sure to check out the Sensory Spectacle website and shop for more resources. Their presence on YouTube is so valuable for educating the public about sensory processing. I am thankful for having found the videos and being able to share them with family and friends. Click on the links below to follow Sensory Spectacle!

Sensory Spectacle Website

Sensory Spectacle Shop

Access and subscribe to the Sensory Spectacle YouTube channel

Follow Sensory Spectacle on Twitter

Follow Sensory Spectacle on Instagram

I’ll wrap up the series with this one video answering the question:

Why Do We Need to Provide Sensory Support?

Supporting a Sensory Lifestyle for People with SPD | Part 2 of 3

On By justmymomsenseIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Thank you again to Becky Lyddon, founder of Sensory Spectacle. Here’s is Part 2 of our 3 Part Weekend Series:

Sensory Spectacle creates immersive learning environments to help parents, professionals and students gain a unique insight into how SPD may feel for them and learn through empathy how best to personalize support for someone with SPD. Our Being Ben experience is based on a common difficulty of filtering out unnecessary sounds, Lola’s World is based on a visual processing difficulty of fragmentation and Mehdiosmia is based on a boy who found the smell of washing detergent too overwhelming to change his clothes.

There are 3 ways someone’s sensory processing may be affected. They could have difficulties with the amount of information they are processing – familiar terms for this are know as seeking and avoiding characteristics. Other people may have difficulties with working out the location or intensity of a sensation. And the third way is through motor-based difficulties. Often covering ears, squinting eyes, licking things, throwing objects, bumping into things, constant movement and eating a small selection of foods are characteristics we may commonly recognize and these are all relating to modulation – the amount of information someone is processing.

Our bodies need a certain amount of sensation to feel ‘OK’. We are constantly regulating ourselves and telling ourselves we are ‘OK’ we might need to help support people with SPD to do this but these characteristics mentioned above are some ways they are already supporting themselves.

Learn loads of fun and practical ways to support children and adults with SPD with our SPECTACULAR Play and Support guides which you can find on our website shop. 

Stay tuned tomorrow for our final part of the series from Becky’s piece on Sensory Processing and don’t forget to check out Sensory Spectacle at http://www.sensoryspectacle.co.uk/! 

If you missed Part 1 of our 3 part series, click here.

Supporting a Sensory Lifestyle for People with SPD | Part 1 of 3

On By justmymomsenseIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I started this blog because of the information and solace I found in other blogs, articles and social media groups. I thought that maybe if by sharing my experience, it might be helpful for another parent going through similar situations. 

Thanks to social media, I came across other fantastic resources. One of those resources was Sensory Spectacle. I started following them on Twitter and watching their YouTube videos. I had reached out to Sensory Spectacle, which is based in the UK, to let them know how much I appreciate their videos and that I would love to link to some of them in my blog. To my surprise, Becky, the founder, offered to write a piece for my blog. I am turning her piece into a 3 part weekend series that begins today!

Thank you to Becky and all those at Sensory Spectacle for sharing this information and all that you do for the SPD community. 

And now, here’s Becky Lyddon, founder of Sensory Spectacle. 

I never quite realized how much I relied on my senses until I started a role as a playworker in London in 2009. After graduating from a degree in Graphic Design I realized an office based job just wasn’t’ for me. So I started a job supporting children and young people in a shortbreaks setting (afterschool, holidays and weekends). I got to do loads of fun activities and go on many holidays taking the children to places they had never been before offering new experiences for them and respite for families.

Being in a management role, as well as supporting the children I also had a responsibility to ensure my staff were confident and competent in caring for the young people in all settings we went to.

Very quickly after being in this role I realized that we didn’t offer any training to help them understand why some children may respond in a particular way to their surroundings. I wanted to make sure we could understand and care for the children as best we could. Often it was hard for staff to recognize triggers or understand why a child may love constantly flickering water, for example. Alongside this we also had many experiences where the public would ask us why a child played in a certain way or even if we could stop a child from doing something in particular.

I wanted to create a better understanding and awareness of Sensory Processing Difficulties (SPD) so I went and studied a Masters in Art & Science, it was here that Sensory Spectacle began making immersive learning environments for everyone to gain a unique insight from and to spread a better understanding and awareness of SPD. Our work is created based on descriptions from people with SPD.

Have you ever wondered how it might feel to hear all of the sounds in your environment right now while you are trying to read this post? The lights buzzing, technology whirring, radiators creaking, wind blowing, leaves rustling, airplanes flying, cars driving, footsteps moving, clocks ticking, conversations next door.

We all process and respond to our surroundings in a personalized way. Sensory processing is something which we all have in common as human beings. From before we are born we are sensing, processing and responding to information received from our senses. Because sensory processing is a personalized system unique to ourselves it is likely that you will have similarities in sensory preferences with your friends and family members as well as differences. Food choices, music preferences, sports activities etc. All of these activities revolve back to sensory processing and we build up these preferences throughout our life.

However for some people, organizing and responding to the sensory messages can be extremely confusing. Some children may cover their ears as they can be overwhelmed with the sounds around them. Or maybe you know someone who only has a diet of dry crunchy foods to help block out the sounds around them.

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is when the brain finds it difficult to organize the messages it’s receiving and respond to them. Some people may respond to these sensations actively or passively. SPD impacts 1 in 20 and we must remember that this is throughout someone’s life so children and adults will experience difficulties processing sensory information. As children with SPD get older they are likely to find ways in which they support their own sensory needs in order to help regulate
their bodies.

We must try to understand what these sensory responses and characteristics mean so that then we can support personal needs. You can learn loads more about this in our workshops.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2 of Becky’s piece on Sensory Processing and don’t forget to check out Sensory Spectacle at http://www.sensoryspectacle.co.uk/!
.

What’s That Sound?

On By justmymomsenseIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

In another life, I worked at an exhibit doing Experiential Marketing. As a way to interact with our kid visitors, we had a “guess the sound” game.

There were pictures of different items and about 6 cans with an item per can. The children had to shake the cans and guess which picture matched the sound. They sat there and played over and over.

Cut to 12+ years later and one of J’s favorite shows is Sid the Science Kid on PBS. They did an episode all about sound and I decided to recreate the game for him!

I picked up a few things from the Dollar Store; coffee cups, paper clips and toothpicks. I combined them with some items I had around the house and boom! A new activity is born and he loves playing it!

My version is definitely a lot more basic than the one we had in the exhibit, but it works. I’m definitely not crafty, but I do find a few easy  activities on Instagram or Pinterest from time to time. I’ll either copy what I see or it’ll make me think of something else I could do.

Being a parent definitely means being more creative.