It is hard to believe that we are starting the second half of second grade. It seems like just yesterday I was at our kinder meeting saying he would never last a whole day at school. He did a great job and loves school.
Now second grade has been a bit bumpy…the teacher is not a fan of special needs kids and hates that both his parents are teachers!! She has no patience and thinks a sensory break is getting all the kids in the class to do jumping jacks…really… She has tried to road block his yoga breaks with the nurse and has made him feel bad about his writing and lack of focus. Since he was up for his three year re-eval we decided to have all the testing repeated to see where he was functioning at. We were both pleased and saddened by the test results. While they show he is highly intelligent, his processing speed is 7%….so this gifted child with SPD now has a significant processing disorder.
EVERYONE’s suggestion….MEDS….AHHHH…MEDS?? Really, I never ever thought in a million years that this is where we would be. I am at a loss….never thought we would be faced with this. I am normally vehemently against meds for young kids, but I want him to learn. The pysch who tested him rocked and gave breaks and rewards. He loved her. She was even surprised how distracted he can be in a 1:1 setting in a brand new undecorated office. I need opinions….for or against…I need to hear what has worked and what has not. I am usually so level headed and now I feel like I am stuck again. This is an obstacle I am not sure how to overcome.
Comments
Jennifer
We have completed every therapy that made sense for my daughter, and all of them made a big difference in her functioning. She has major sensory problems and anxiety as a part of her Asperger Syndrome. I was totally against meds, too, until my daughter came to me with tears in her eyes after days of facial tics and uncontrolled head nodding as well as skin picking and ocd-like handwashing, and begged me to take her to a doctor to make it stop. I finally relented to trying a tiny dose of anti-anxiety meds after taking her to a psychiatrist, counselor, and pediatrician, but even then it took me months after the appointment to give in. After taking the meds for a month or so, she hugged me and told me she was happy and that she never knew she could feel happy. It hasn’t solved everything, and she is not even on a full dose because she is so sensitive, but it has made a huge difference and she is making progress again. If you do decide to try it, remember, you can wean them off if you don’t like it or it isn’t right. Trying a medicine is NOT forever. It is one more tool in your arsenal. Do your research and begin by treating your child’s main problem only(i.e. anxiety, attention, etc.), but go slowly. (I’m not saying it’s right for every child and I do believe it should be a last resort. First should be putting nutrition, sleep, exercise, and therapy first.) Start at a quarter or half dose and go slowly. My little boy has a rare upper airway disease, and I wouldn’t dream of denying him his meds. Just food for thought. Good luck to you! If you are interesting in reading my daughter’s story, you can find it here:http://babyminding.com/2010/10/25/the-special-needs-child-jacquelyns-story/
Shannon
I was a social worker for years and now i have 3 children one with Bipolar II and one with PDD and sensory processing. We do lots ot therapy and OT. One of the Dr.s said to me about my daughter with BP II- if she can’t focus in therapy it’s not going to do any good, if she is to anxious to realize what is really going on around her she can’t respond to it appropriately. So we went with the smallest dose of meds- it made all the difference. She thanked us for taking her to the dr, and she was 7 at the time, that’s how much SHE could tell it was helping. Remember once you start meds- they don’t have to stay on them- you decided you don’t like it or it’s not working you stop (with the dr.s help of course) you can always change your mind later. Think of it another way- when your child has strep- do you let them have the antibiotics? or make them wait it out hoping it’ll go away on it’s own? if they had cancer would you allow treatment/chemo or wait it out? if they broke a leg would you cast it until it was better then take it off…
Susan S.
I thought that all of my son’s inability to pay attention were because he wasn’t getting enough sensory input. It was his physical therapist who helped me to see that it’s likely that there isn’t enough input to keep his focus during school. After an eval from a neuropsychologist, we hesitatingly decided to do a meds trial. We started with a very low dose, so low that it had no effect. Then, after no ill side effects, upped the does. We continued on in this manner until the second dose increase. It was there that my son’s anxiety and frustration went through the roof. I immediately stopped that medication (with our doctor’s blessing). We tried a different medication, and had bad side effects as well (my son became suicidal). We tried a third medication after taking a few weeks off. This medication mad my son feel woosy and totally not himself. He refused a second dose.
So, for my son, the pharmaceuticals are not the way. I do have Energy Healing done on my son, and we’re trying a homeopathic remedy.
The fact of the matter might be that this is the way my son is, and that’s that. I can live with it.
As for you child’s teacher, making your son feel bad about his writing and lack of focus, is reprehensible. If your son is anything like mine, he already knows he doesn’t write well and has trouble paying attention, and probably doesn’t feel very well about it all.
That said a medication trial is just that, a trial. Nothing ventured nothing gained. And this stuff can be stopped on a dime.
Heather F.
I agree that medication can be tried and stopped. I am a former teacher, or as I like to say “A teacher without a classroom”, and my husband is a classroom music teacher. Medication may be the answer, it may not. You can try it, and if it doesn’t help or has bad side effects you can stop.
As for the teacher in this case, I’m sorry, but shame on her! It is not her job to degrade or shame a child. It is her job to encourage and build up. My son is in 1st grade and has all A’s except for handwriting, that one is a C-. And I get that they have to have standards, I could care less about the grade as he is doing his best. Now, with that grade, no one shames him or makes him feel bad that he is doing it to the best of his ability. I would change teachers or schools if someone treated my child that way. That is NOT acceptable!
One thing you can try for the handwriting is the Handwriting without Tears curriculum. I use it at home for both of my boys and both they and I LOVE it. The kid workbooks are only about $8-9 each, and can be done without the teacher’s manual, but it is helpful.
EHCMom
I would recommend the Feingold Diet (feingold.org). Our daughter’s focus and behavior has improved dramatically since she completed eight weeks on Stage 1 of the diet. It took some tweeking after the eight weeks to identify a couple of other things that cause behavioral problems (corn and barley), but the difference is so dramatic it can’t be denied. It seems too simple that it could just be food and soaps that cause a child to have issues, but I am overwhelmed and so thankful that I found this diet because of the improvement in my daughter’s quality of life. She still has SPD, but she’s taken a giant leap forward in functioning because of this diet. You may also want to watch the documentary Chemerical. Very enlightening.
Jean
My suggestion is to try adjusting food also. We had a blood test done for my son which identified almost 40 foods that he is sensitive to. However, we are focusing on those he showed the most sensitivity to, including corn, fructose, cow’s milk and a few others. We are also gluten free and avoid food dye. We do still find a lot of good food to eat, although we make a lot of it ourselves. But it is so totally worth it! Going gluten free had some impact on our son but eliminating the others has made him almost a different kid. He still has his days, but we have more good than bad. I’m not saying eliminating the same foods would have the same effect on your child, but it may be worth trying to eliminate some stuff and see what happens. It took 1-2 months for us to really see the full effects of the diet change. Good luck!
Brooke
My son has low processing speed as well. And from what I’ve read that isn’t going to change on meds. It is what it is and will always be something they are dealing with and they will need tools and lots of help to learn to work around it. (I’m no expert though, just what I read. I’m specifically asking this question at our next Psychologist appointment).
My son is on 2 different meds for ADHD and they have both made a huge difference. He’s in first grade. it took a lot of trial and error though and if I didn’t completely trust my pediatrician, we probably would have stopped trying.
In my opinion, you need more information. You need clear diagnosis of what you’d be medicating. You need to have caregivers to guide you and that you completely trust because the medication road can be very bumpy.
I agree too, that you can always stop. And some meds to clear their system in 12 hours so you don’t have to wean them, you can stop immediately. It depends on what you are treating.
Good luck, you’ll know when you are ready to try something. Keep searching for the answers that lead you to the next step. I think teachers sometimes push meds because they have seen the cases of huge change, like in my son. He’s a totally different kid, in a good way.
Michelle
My 9yo has minor SPD but we also just found out he is in the 7th percentile for visual processing. You can imagine our shock given that he is in the gifted program at school…sounds a bit like your guy.
My 11yo has pretty significant SPD, my 6yo moderate. These two kiddos are also on the autism spectrum. All three kiddos have a medical label of ADHD and take stimulant meds. At one point or another, all three boys have had teachers who didn’t believe my kids needed the meds…until the one or two times I forgot to give it to them. Then I received phone calls and the teachers were in shock that meds could make such a difference.
My guys could be considered poster children for the methylphenidate family of ADHD meds. I believe my guys deserve their meds. They deserve to feel good about themselves and their accomplishments at school. They deserve teachers who like them (my guys can be hard to like sometimes) and they deserve the friends they can make when regulated enough to develop a relationship.
Meds don’t work the same with all children. However, I believe it to be worthwhile to find out if meds work for yours.