Guest guest Posted February 5, 2011 Report Share Posted February 5, 2011 The strangest thing happened at Brain Balance. When we started Brain Balance, we were already very far into Tyler's recovery from autism. Over the years we saw many stims. Verbal stims (once he became verbal), flapping, weird eye/finger movements, spinning, odd head movements etc..... When we started Brain Balance, we hadn't seen flapping in probably 2 years. Once when I was watching my son at BB through a view window he was flapping. I couldn't believe my eyes. I said to the director " oh my gosh, what is he doing? " The director said " he's stimming. " At that moment they had vibrators and other stimulators on my son's body. I think my son's left side of the body to stimulate the right brain. I couldn't believe while he was doing his exercises he was stimming like this. We hadn't seen it in so long. The director basically said that as they are working to correct his sensory system dysfunction he would stim like that naturally. His brain requiring his body to do that stim. I don't know what any of that means really. But it was so facinating to me. The Son-Rise people see the stim as a way in. The child needs to do the stim. The child uses the stim in some way to help themselves. So they use the stim as a way to join the child, a way to show the child that you understand and you aren't trying to change them, but just love them where they are. Eventually this joining will result in your child looking at you and then you can with this " green light " build a skill. We did this with our son for many hours a day for 3 years. Joining the child and then building skills when he of his own free will, gave us a green light. Sounds tedious and it was. Other times we'd do biomedical interventions and his stimming would increase or decrease. At the time I'd always panic when it would increase. It scared the crap out of me. But I've come to realize that the treatments weren't " causing it. " The stimming is just something the body does as a way to take care of itself. So something is going on. An infection, sensory overload etc... I thought it was so strange that my son would stim wildly in that BB room and then not at all when he left and we went back to the hotel. I don't know why I'm sharing really. I guess it was just so interesting to me, I wanted to share. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 6, 2011 Report Share Posted February 6, 2011 Thanks for sharing. We haven't tried BB or Son Rise w/ our non-verbal son but your typical therapies...Speech, OT, ABA, Music Therapy, dietary changes etc etc. We recently started a biomedical treatment w/ supplements & MB12 injections twice weekly & since then have noticed his vocal stimming has decreased dramatically (spitting, squawking, screeching, etc) but hand stimming has increased as has his OCD tendencies (which is something "new" in the past 2 or 3 wks). Anyway, he has had some form of stimming for the past 7 yrs or so (he's 91/2 now)- it just keeps changing & some come & go, almost in phases it seems. It started out w/ classic toe-walking to flapping to clapping to object stimming to vocal stims...the clapping is pretty consistent but the others come & go ( except toe-walking & flapping- those were very short -lived early on & haven't recurred. My husband & I have often wondered if some are seasonal as some disappear (such as squawking) for 9 mnths & up to a yr or more & rear their ugly head(s) once again.(?) We've tried to use his stims to "join him" to try to gain his interest on his terms w/o much success. We have noticed him becoming more affectionate & wanting to spend time w/ us more since starting the biomedical treatments but not sure if it's coincidental or related? Anyway, I'm starting to ramble but was wondering if anyone out there has similar experiences in regards to stimming "cycles" & /or other observations with their child(ren)...Sent from my iPhone The strangest thing happened at Brain Balance. When we started Brain Balance, we were already very far into Tyler's recovery from autism. Over the years we saw many stims. Verbal stims (once he became verbal), flapping, weird eye/finger movements, spinning, odd head movements etc..... When we started Brain Balance, we hadn't seen flapping in probably 2 years. Once when I was watching my son at BB through a view window he was flapping. I couldn't believe my eyes. I said to the director "oh my gosh, what is he doing?" The director said "he's stimming." At that moment they had vibrators and other stimulators on my son's body. I think my son's left side of the body to stimulate the right brain. I couldn't believe while he was doing his exercises he was stimming like this. We hadn't seen it in so long. The director basically said that as they are working to correct his sensory system dysfunction he would stim like that naturally. His brain requiring his body to do that stim. I don't know what any of that means really. But it was so facinating to me. The Son-Rise people see the stim as a way in. The child needs to do the stim. The child uses the stim in some way to help themselves. So they use the stim as a way to join the child, a way to show the child that you understand and you aren't trying to change them, but just love them where they are. Eventually this joining will result in your child looking at you and then you can with this "green light" build a skill. We did this with our son for many hours a day for 3 years. Joining the child and then building skills when he of his own free will, gave us a green light. Sounds tedious and it was. Other times we'd do biomedical interventions and his stimming would increase or decrease. At the time I'd always panic when it would increase. It scared the crap out of me. But I've come to realize that the treatments weren't "causing it." The stimming is just something the body does as a way to take care of itself. So something is going on. An infection, sensory overload etc... I thought it was so strange that my son would stim wildly in that BB room and then not at all when he left and we went back to the hotel. I don't know why I'm sharing really. I guess it was just so interesting to me, I wanted to share. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 6, 2011 Report Share Posted February 6, 2011 Dolly I kinda hate email when it comes to describing anything in autism. However we are lucky to have each other in this way too. Joining a quick statement based on my experience. The way the SR people teach this is pretty in depth, much to it that I can't properly share in a paragraph or over email. It took almost 6 months for our son to look at us in that playroom with joining. Many hours a day of joining. However joining does little to address the biomedical train wreck that the kids are dealing with. Except that, the room is so comfortable and safe that it gives the immune system a break, the sensory system a break...less stress/stimulus. How is your son's bowel function/eating habits? For us these were huge clues about what was going on. Getting the liver in good shape was a good step for us. Then we were able to chelate. BB may be a good thing for your son, but it was good for our son because he was already in a good spot biomedically speaking. He had already come a long way. I think BB has it's limitations depending on the symptoms the child has. That said, I do think it's great/a very important part. All the best > > > The strangest thing happened at Brain Balance. When we started Brain Balance, we were already very far into Tyler's recovery from autism. > > > > Over the years we saw many stims. Verbal stims (once he became verbal), flapping, weird eye/finger movements, spinning, odd head movements etc..... > > > > When we started Brain Balance, we hadn't seen flapping in probably 2 years. > > > > Once when I was watching my son at BB through a view window he was flapping. I couldn't believe my eyes. I said to the director " oh my gosh, what is he doing? " The director said " he's stimming. " > > > > At that moment they had vibrators and other stimulators on my son's body. I think my son's left side of the body to stimulate the right brain. > > > > I couldn't believe while he was doing his exercises he was stimming like this. We hadn't seen it in so long. > > > > The director basically said that as they are working to correct his sensory system dysfunction he would stim like that naturally. His brain requiring his body to do that stim. > > > > I don't know what any of that means really. But it was so facinating to me. > > > > The Son-Rise people see the stim as a way in. The child needs to do the stim. The child uses the stim in some way to help themselves. So they use the stim as a way to join the child, a way to show the child that you understand and you aren't trying to change them, but just love them where they are. Eventually this joining will result in your child looking at you and then you can with this " green light " build a skill. We did this with our son for many hours a day for 3 years. Joining the child and then building skills when he of his own free will, gave us a green light. Sounds tedious and it was. > > > > Other times we'd do biomedical interventions and his stimming would increase or decrease. At the time I'd always panic when it would increase. It scared the crap out of me. > > > > But I've come to realize that the treatments weren't " causing it. " The stimming is just something the body does as a way to take care of itself. So something is going on. An infection, sensory overload etc... > > > > I thought it was so strange that my son would stim wildly in that BB room and then not at all when he left and we went back to the hotel. > > > > I don't know why I'm sharing really. I guess it was just so interesting to me, I wanted to share. > > > > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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