Here is one for the mind and the brain! Sensory integration disorder:
I work with many children with this problem, I have also worked with adults with the same problem. Basically, the brain takes in sensory information form all of our 7, YES 7 sensory systems
: tactile(touch), olifactory(smell), Vision, hearing, taste, vestibular(which regulates equilibrium, emotional state, arousal and attention) this is controlled by the iner ear, and proprioceptive(tendons and joints) this helps a person be aware of their body in space, otherwise known as motor planning.
When any of teh sensory systems are not functioning correctly, there is a reaction by the whole body, as each system effects another. All of our sensory information gets processed in the brain, therefore sensory integration disorders are malfunctions of the brain. Lets not confuse this with brain damage induced disorders. For example, a child with cerebral palsy has brain damage that can be seen on an mri or cat scan. The damage may effect the child's awareness of his body in space, but this is directly related to the brain damage. A child with sensory issues has had every other test to determine that it is not the result of a medical condidton, or brain damage.
This souns confusing, but it really isnt. I bring up this topic for a reason! And that is to explain occupational therapy techniques. I work with many childern who suffer srom SI issues. Their parents may decline ocupational therapy, because most people think OT is just about enhancing fine motor skills...well, it is alot more than just that! OT helps a child with overcoming SI issues as well.
I will write more on this topic soon!
If anyone has anything to add, or any questions for that matter, please post it here! By the way, I am a special education teacher, so this area is my expertise!
Love to all, your sensory defective friend, Dara

OK, so I must reply to myself...many "normal" poeple can live with sensory integration issues as well, and have productive lives. Though I have never been tested or diagnosed, I will tell you that I require constant movement to focus on things. I am always shaking my legs, if I am sitting, when I stand on lines, I must move, rock, shake.uy husband makes fun of me because I shake my legs as I am fallin asleep! He says "do you EVER sotp moving?" LOL

Just thought I would share this info here!
Love, the always on the move, Dara

hello Dara,

You might find this link interesting:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf...nrn1030_fs.html

I hope you can access it.  It's an html article from the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience called 'BINDING, SPATIAL ATTENTION AND PERCEPTUAL AWARENESS ', and it's sort of a summary about binding across sensory modalities, i.e., sensory integration.  The author, Lynn C. Robertson, seems to implicate the parietal lobe in sensory integration.

Anyway, please let me know what you think, whether you were able to access the article and whether you found it useful.

take care,

Shawn

hey Dara, your whole little thig confused me but about the moving thing.. i do its kinda funny in some was i try to it still but i can feel the my whole boby shakes like the muscels..... and my hands shake constanly which gets sooannoying sometimes.... and then i do the lag shaking/bouncing... and if i sit sertain ways i rock back and forth... lol but yeah so its that what your talking about cus im totally confused.....

Anne

Anne,
Sorry fo rhe confusion. Actually, there can be numerous reasons why you shake, or cannot sit still. I actually find that movement helps calm me, and really helps me focus. It is something I do wothout even realising I am doing it most of the time!
As for sensory integration disorder, it is very technical and involves systems of the brain not working correctly. The parts of the brain that proces the sensory information we take in. I wish I could do a beter job of explaining all this, but actually I have learned mst of this through my neurological development class for my masters degree, so it is kind of technical.
I worte about it here, because I work ith alotof kids with this problem, and it REALLY can have a negative impact on all aspects of their lives. Basically, everything appears to be working fine, but the brain is not! It effects all areas of a childs life, and stays with the child as they grow. Thee are ways of training the mind to interpret the sensory input by setting up new pathways in the brain...alll technical stuff!
Sory for the confusion! I am often comfused myself!
Love, Dara

Dara,
Its  all good im normaly always confused.... lol

(warning! The following message is pure opinion, and I have no degrees whatsoever! Im not even out of highschool yet!)

Maybe your shaking is similar to the calming effects of a familiar movement, much like smoking a cigarette- the hand-to-mouth motion is performed, then the brain is rewarded (or punished, depending how you look at it, lol) but a surge of nicotine. This would reinforce the reward pathways associated with the motion. .  so maybe when you are twiddling your thumbs or whatever, you consciously believe it is calming you, so youre calmed, and thats your reward, and since it rewards you, you do it again. . . big cycle. Maybe. Just an idea.

That or maybe youve got a adrenal gland disorder  ;D

- Tom

Thanks Tom for the input, never thought of it like that before!

Please write again!
Love, Dara

Hi Dara,
I have had endogenous (biological) depression (called 'not knowing how to live' by the anti-psychiatry brigade)from being an early teenager, possibly even younger.
I found out when I was 46, after having a 'nervous breakdown'.
I led a successful life through all those years, achieving well in everything I did.
Firstly, I would like to say that I think the medical descriptors of the illness are less than useful because they convey negatively emotive connotations, and prevent people from learning about the illness. Yes, bodily functions are depressed, and the nervous system is significantly involved, but there should be some words conjured up to avoid the 'I'm going mental' and the 'sad' tags that become associated. I have never felt sad or depressed or unhappy or been of a nervous disposition during my life, except for very short periods of an emotional kind (family death etc.).
Secondly I will relate some of my own experiences of sensory integration disorder (which I had not heard of).
During the first two years of using antidepressants, I had first hand experience of sensory changes (realising normality) which affected my 'senses' of smell, hearing, sight, clumsiness, balance, muscle tone, feelings, and sleep depth. I can't remember any significant change to the sense of taste.
I could smell things I have not smelled properly before.
I heard stereo sound that made me cry.
I saw colours in a different 'light' - they made me cry.
Minor clumsiness occurred temporarily; it didn't before.
I include under balance my experience of another syndrome I have had for 30 years - Menieres disease. There is no cure for this, merely emetics and blood surgers to try and control the symptoms of sickness, vomitting and vertigo - all of which are severe and concurrent at times! I have had no attacks whilst I have been taking antidepressants (AD's)! So, they are a cure for me. And, yes, the attacks re-occur when I stop the AD's (within 24 hours). I had concluded many years ago that this syndrome, for me at least, was due to an incorrect interpretation within my brain of vision signals and muscular positional signals (your proprio's?) which was causing conflict within my brain. The main reason I came to this conclusion was because an attack always started with vertigo, having to hold onto walls, tables and chairs etc., and yet, because I was not fit to work, I would always drive home and take a day off. As soon as I got into my car and started driving, the vertigo stopped, and then restarted as soon as I got out of the car at home!
When I started taking antidepressants, my muscles became relaxed, to the extent that I initially thought I was dead - There could not be any other explanation when I first detected this change. I had never thought my muscles were not relaxing totally, previously.
When my psychiatrist (yes, I had therapy for two years, and, no it me no good at all with my particular condition) asked me 'how do you feel today' I said, 'I put my hands on the object I want to feel and, lo and below I feel it'. I was not joking!!
Now I understand what was meant, though I must admit that I knew what was meant when the question was asked.
I had seen feelings at work in other people.
My sleep became a totally new experience. After going to bed, a blank period occurred; a blackness, which I had never experienced before taking AD's. I had only been half asleep for all those years - is it any wonder it's called burn-up??

Finally, I have to say that life has nonetheless been a great experience.
I realise that effectively I have been half dead all the time. But, that is not the truth; rather, my experience (of what I have witnessed through life) has been way down on the experience a normal healthy person perceives. I think this affords some explanation of why some people consider suicide; but that is just my opinion. I wrote a poem about suicide, probably because it requires far fewer words to say something than by writing out a sentence or two.

Life Or Death.

Some people think of suicide
as a desire, courting death.
It's not, it's just the opposite
an aversion of another breath.

Finally, I congratulate you on your preparedness to study and apply your skills in the fields you have chosen.
You are blessed!

Best regards, Bill.

Hi.
Let's see. just so I can communicate on this wonderful subject, I guess my version of the truth is our five sense mechanism of the common variety has an outer sense system terminator site that collects information.  Actual receptor sites.  For instance rods and cones of the eye, taste buds on the tongue, ear drum that viabrates, etc.
The two catagories that I hae trouble with including in the detection system is the emotive one included as it isa function of the brain-mind with no outer receptor sites. and the proprioceptive with accompanying vestibular feed back mechanism that again is a function of the brain, having no outer receptor site except for the information flow from our normal nervous system.
Now I just want to make a comment or two without agreeing to a novel mixture of detector mechanisms
with brain function.  Not that I mind a different way of perceiving how we carry on in the world and not to be picky.  But because what I wish to talk about is three systems, each one a potential source of trouble for this disorder you speak to.  I'll post this now and come right back to the subject.
And, greetings everyone
John

To continue,
The three seperate and distinct systems that effect the child with this sensory disorder could be broken down into, an insult of some sort to the five sense detection mechanism such as deteriation of of the transmitting system such Lou Gherrig's desease, a breakdown of the sheathing of the signal transmission system itself.  These are easily detectable deseases and are not as frequent as the third system I will address, the second system would be some lesion or desease that effected the controlling function in the brain itself.  Such as Parkinson's desease or a infection resulting in damage to the inner ear vestibular system, for instance.
I believe that the largest category that may be the cause of this disorder can be an environmental insult to the child during its age of primary development.  
The seminal work that discusses this was done by Harlow at the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory.  He developed this finding by isolating monkeys reared during childhood.  James Prescott of the National Institutes of Health then took the findings and applied it to human children.  He observed that isolation reared children for instance, those in orphanages that were not picked up and had little or no skin contact with other humans or were left to cry without attention (Spock), suffered gross physical disturbances in the vestibular area of the brain.  He called this somatosensory deprivation.  He could get little response from the community and took his case to the public.  He was advisor consultant to an award winning (Cannes) Time Life film called "Rock-abye-baby.  Jim was such a firebrand that he got dismissed from his post at NIH with his non academic approach to attempt to promote his observations and his efforts tainted his original work.  I gave Jim a living space at my home for eighteen months during this turbulent time in his life.
I don't believe this finding of his and Harlow's has been given the attenion it deserved to this day.
If anyone is interested I have some ideas of my own that might be helpful.
John

Vestibular sensations:
Arise from firing of vestibular apparatus in each inner ear. The vestibular system tells the brain we are moving, surrounded by something that is moving, on something that is moving, or a combo of the three. It also tells teh brain where DOWN is, because the vestibular apparatus registers the pull of gravity.


Proprioceptive Sensations:
Arise from receptors located in the muscles, tendons,  and ligaments that surround joints. This system tells the brain where the body parts are without having to look.

I hope this helps you understand where the receptors for these sensory inputs are located! Just a few thigs I learned on the way to becomming a Special Education teacher!

Love,
Dara

Dara,
In order to explain my story I think I clearly identified that I was going to tell it using my version of the truth.

Your version is your version of that same truth.
Clearly emotions are resident in the limbic section of the brain.  I don't know how to include it at the sensory level.  
The detection apparatus of  spacial awareness within the skeletal body is, im my opinion, a part of the normal nervous system with the brain handling the input in a different way.  A part of the job of the old smell and lizard brain to decode and respond to input of the tactile system.
The inner ear is a swing item.  I could give serious pause and include it into the detector catagory.  Or for the purposes of responding to your post just continue on with my foolish understanding and for the purposes of laziness consider this a part of the brain all housed in the protective custody of our bony cavern.  It is called the inner ear is it not?
So for the purpose of this discussion to go to the main point, please humor me.  Even Alice in Wonderland treated her characters seriously.  Just pretend I am one of yours.  Maybe Lewis Carroll was trying to say something under the story.
Or I could consider your version trump.  It does not matter to the central point I was trying to make.
That point is we are coming from a perspective that is missing what might be the central cause of this disorder.
Since, in my opinion, we are treating symtoms of disorder with band-aid therapy instead of ferreting out the main systemic cause of the disorder. In so doing, we miss the oppotunity to perhaps effect a more permanent treatment.
Rocking and continuous motion is a tip off to somatosensory deprivation during infancy.

Quick question, have you ever hels a baby who is tactile defensive? Ask any mother of a child with autism, they will explain that they hugged, kised, rocked, loved their babies just as any other child! Here is the problem. Sensory issues CANNOT be directly measured. What I mean is this: If a child is cognatively(sp) defecit, and the cause is brain damags, an CAT scan, or MRI can detect the damage. It can be seen and measured and compared to "normal" brains. On the other hand, we can scan children whou have SID and find their brains to be exactl like ours. This makes it tricky. It cannot be seen or measured, but it does in fact exist. There are an overwhelming amount of children with autism and SID's.

Well, I just like to talk about this stuff, as I work with it each and every day! I have family members with diagnosed PPD, SID, autism, etc...I ahve seen it with my own eyes form birth through childhood, to adulthood! This is my passion.

We come form different schools of thought, I am one who will learn forever. I take in all persectives of an idea. Just because I learned about SID this way, dosent mean it is the only reason out there! So, explain away. I take in all info asn process it as a learning experience! I hope you can find my info somewhat interesting as well!

Take care!

Love,
Dara!

Dara,

To answer your quick question-Yes.
To respond to your indication of finding abnormalities using equiment-this is one of the catagories-brain injury- that I covered.
Now,  you have presented me with a general class of autism and SID, not to be mixed up with sudden infant death syndrome and then told me that the parents of these children hug, hold, love, etc.  Really?  All of them?  Who admits to not loving a child when confronted?
You see I am not holding forth that all forms of this affliction are caused by somatosensory deprivation.  I could not make a general statement like that.
I think we will find a rearrangement of the chemical and electrical systems of the brain into a reconstructed survival configuration that can be changed back to its original order in adulthood.  That is the area I am working on.  I use a natural imaging system that is located as a part of our brain-mind system to do this instead of using mri's etc.

Yours in comraderie,
and to 'Finde die pearle in der scheisse'.
John

WOW, good luck in your work! If you can change these problems in adulthood, you will be VERY famous,and in the hearts of many families of people suffering with autism and SID (Sensory Integration Disorder). Let me know how it goes!

BTW, I personally know many families who DID hold their children, love them and do all the things right and STILL have children with autism and SID!

Please let me know how the work is progressing, ok?

Love,
Dara

Dora,
Not so fast, I am not looking for fame, fortune or recognition at this point in my life.  I am trying to share information.  I responded to your post hoping to pass on some information.  I think we are at the entrance point of a very interesting period of time.
Since you identified your work area to concern children and I think certain ways of viewing that area to be very helpful I thought I would open that gate.
Somatosensory deprivation is a very recognizible disorder if you look for it.  I also think that the child can be deprived of love even when held if the parent(s) are focused on projecting what they want that child to be instead of rewarding the child for just being what it is naturally.  Further, I believe that most of us have been programmed in this manner.  It is a matter of degree that determins the injury and the original structure of the original personality.  yes, it appears the child has an original personality, (Minn. twin studies, for instance)
In fact, I believe we were born with two inherent personalities!  I observe these personalities on a daily basis-  one for the governess of the outside wold; the other for the management of the interior domain.  I further believe when the child is not rewarded for being who it really is, the personalities switch.  The second personality tries to give the carer what is demanded.  That is what causes the trauma and resultant desease state in some cases,  How many I do not know.  These people are treatable just as long as you can form a communication link with them
Don't expect to find this in literature for it is not there.  I have been working on this for over two decades in general.  My comments about SID are just one of the fall outs to this work.
Now you can dismiss me, unless you have the courage and inclination to find out what I know and am talking about.  (How challenging of me.).  Â But, it will take some gentle handling on your part and I will not reveal what I know to those that look down their nose at me.
That is to protect my own inner child that is emerging from abuse it retreated from when it was young.
So, that is my turkey talk.
Not to put you on the spot, but why would someone that is dealing with children have as a logo: "Das leben ist scheisse",  if you had not gone through this process of deniel of self yourself?  How does this attitude affect the children you deal with?

Curious and usually very pliant,
John

Hey,

Das Liben ist scheisse! I agree with that statement. Mine especially has been scheisse! I am also a child of abuse, and I am also emerging! So, I work with kids, and nurture them, help give them the voice that they cannot find on their own wothout help! I have a boy now who has autism, VERY low functioning, and my delight to be alive is teaching him sounds, signs, words! YES, I work very hard, I take pride in my job. I find no greater pleasure than working with these children. I used to work with adults with disabilities too and I loved them as well.

I can have my own philosophy on my life, and still participate in making others lives as indapendent and productive as possible. I find meanng in my life by being a service to others! Especially the kids I work for, and their families. Nothing can compare to the feeling I get when  a child who has NO communication learns to shake his head yes and no, learns to vocalise sounds! When the mother cries tears of joy that her child IS in there! AAAAAAAH, I love it.

ANyhow I really am interested in your work. I am actually open to any ideas and suggestions that could benefit my kids! So, please, you can tell me what you know, and I can share what I know, and we can learn form eachother! Like I said, I am open to new ideas and theories. And here is a good place to discover so much! I am passionate about these topics, so I feel like sharing what I have to offer when members post about SID and other things!

Have a nice night!

Love,
Dara