Amnesty Re: what about sounds; what sounds do you not like and why

[Guest guest]

Judith Bluestone suggests the reason that individuals on the autism

spectrum tend to be poor sleepers is due to the issue of proprioception.

If you don't know where you are in space (proprioception), you need

another sense to tell you where you are. Individuals switch to using

vision to tell them where they are in space. When you expect them to

lie down in bed in a dark room and shut their eyes, you're asking them

to shut off their most relied upon (not most reliable) sense in terms of

telling them where they are in space.

McKean is a man w/ autism who writes that he sleeps w/ teddy

bears all around him. He describes being able to roll into them, push

his body into them, for proprioceptive input. He can tell where he

begins and ends with those teddy bears around him.

HANDLE activities are designed to integrate the senses so that vision is

used in concert w/ other senses, and not compensating for neural

underconnectivity.

Penny

>

> I made a weighted blanket for my son a few months ago. I think it is

helping him sleep better and he seems less anxious. He sleeps with piles

of blankets and his bed is often soaked with sweat. So I tried to make a

blanket that I could toss in the washing machine. I didn't want to use

gravel or beans or rice or sand to weigh the blanket. I found a duvet

cover on sale at Ikea in his favorite color to cover the outside. I

thought I could change the cover from time to time just for variety.

>

> For the weighted blanket on the inside, I used some cotton linen

kitchen towels and sewed them to made squares. I stuffed the squares

with small polyester beads. I found a website where I could buy the

beads in bulk and so it was much, much cheaper than buying little bags

of poly beads from the fabric store. I found several formulas for

figuring out the weight and so my son's bed is about 15 pounds.

>

> If anyone is interested in making a weighted blanket, you can email me

and I'll send you more detailed directions.

>