Bright Feats Show

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We had the pleasure of talking with Sandy Wainman. Sandy is an Occupational Therapist and co-founder of LifeSkills, the first clinic specializing in Sensory Integration in the metropolitan Orlando area.

1. What is the definition of Sensory Integration and Sensory Processing Disorder? “It is a difficulty experienced by very good, intelligent children. It definitely has nothing to do with intelligence. Sometimes it looks like the kids aren’t trying because they get frustrated and it is hard to see why they act like they do. Sensory processing is when the intelligence is not getting the information that should be coming in that they really need about their bodies, what they need to make their bodies feel comfortable and ready to work. And it’s something you can’t see because you only know what their intelligence is. Sometimes we can see it in an infant when the child is sensitive to touch or being held. Some kids put their fingers in their ears or are very clingy. Children have a hard time sitting still, they fidget, move around and they just never stop moving. Some are picky eaters. So when we see this we see that sometimes the child isn’t as functional as we would expect them to be. If the child’s processing is not happening then it looks like there is a real discrepancy between what you expect them to do and what they do.”

2. What is the typical response of adults to children with sensory issues? “We usually think of it as being a behavioral problem. We think the child is not trying and is unmotivated in school or very often the kids are called lazy. That is what drove me to really want to work for these children because in fact the kids internally are feeling that they are disruptive and inadequate. It looks like they are not trying but they are trying hard. I think parents of children that have this disorder feel other adults judge them. Very often people feel other adults think they are not parenting well or disciplining their child. It is something that we can’t see so we judge the parents or child. Very often our kids are mislabeled. I’m not saying bipolar or ADHD problems don’t exist, they do. But sometimes our children are labeled these things and they aren’t that. It makes sense that people misdiagnosis this or misjudge because it hasn’t been known for very long. When you treat the sensory processing disorder so many of the things you identify with Asperger’s, let’s say, or the social skills that aren’t there, the eye contact that isn’t there or a child who does flapping or persistently wants something to go a certain way, these are sensory issues that when you really treat them from the source you treat the part of the brain that is making it happen. You see changes. Children socialize in groups that couldn’t do that in the beginning. Spontaneously, not because you gave them behavioral rewards. The behavior, social skills, the academics, the motor skills of writing, the ability to hand a paper in on time and eye contact, these functional things, change because the sensory processing is something that is underlying. A lot of the motor things that the children can’t do change when we can deal with the sensory system enough to calm them down, and allow that body to be relaxed. You can see children being stretched and do all kinds of things with their muscles that they couldn’t do before.”

3. What happens when you give the child appropriate sensory input? “When you work on sensory processing you work with the brain. Not the intelligence part of it but the part of the brain that sends the signals up, the operating system so to speak. When you work with that and the child gets different signals than the skill you want them to do can be done with comfort and it starts to give them a different kind of feedback. And what we see is that memory of the past, when it was scary or hard to do, will lead their first response. And now that we have gotten them to a different place and they can start to see themselves doing it then it can actually start to feel good. I will tell you at LifeSkills that the children are feeling like it is a very safe place for them to be because the therapists are working from a sensory integration perspective. They start to feel success and are motivated to move to the next step themselves.

4. Please tell us what is special about your center, LifeSkills. “LifeSkills was established in 1993. We see children one on one for Occupational and/or Speech and Language therapy. Oral motor is very much a part of it as well. We do a very good evaluation that takes about an hour to see if the child has a processing disorder. We work one on one with them, work with the parent in a collaborative model so the parent understands it and help the parent at home or the teacher at school. We have a full time school and a summer program. We have certified teachers, wonderful people, who work with the therapists. Therapy is included in the children’s day. The children come to us for one or two years to be retrained so they can then go out to another school. It is an academic program. The children do so well because we get their bodies in a place so they are so ready to work. It’s a happy place and yet the results are definitely there.”

We hope you enjoy our interview with Sandy Wainman. She has graciously written several helpful articles for Bright Feats which are available on the Bright Feats website. And a video clip of the LifeSkills center in action is available for viewing at www.BrightFeats.com. It is our mission, at Bright Feats, to connect families with centers like LifeSkills and other medical, educational and special needs resources. If we can help you please contact us.

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