Brush/compression therapy (OT)

[888mom]

Does anyone else do a brush technique or compressions with their children or have gone through it themselves?  Those are two therapies that are also used for ADHD as well as PDD.

I was curious to see what would happen if I stopped doing the brush/compression therapy for my daughter.  I was wondering possibly if it was causing symptoms as well as alleviating the sensory issues.  I was indeed correct... in the past 3 days of not doing the brushing or the compressions that I was doing every 4 hours, she has stopped some of her ritualistic behavior entirely.  She will not freak out at all if I put her right leg in her pants before her left, right arm in before the left, right shoe before the left or if I alternate left or right.  Before it had to be left first or total complete freakout/meltdown until you started over again.  She is also less rigid about doing certain things in order.  She still does her puzzles the same way every single time and a couple things the same way, but she is more flexible about other things.  

Do I continue the therapies even though her therapists recommend to continue?  My daughter also hates being rolled up, and her OT kept rolling her up in a blanket saying kids on the autistic spectrum love beign rolled up and it really helps them sensory wise.  I nipped that one from the start refusing that my daughter would go through that every day (she did it once and it was a 45 minute freak out... she hates being rolled up... she hates blankets, she hates hats, she hates gloves... she hates any extra/additional clothing that is unnecessary).  She also hated the pressure vest and the sensory weighted vest.  So, I wonder if the brush/compression therapy is not a good thing to continue.

Now she is having more sensory related issues since not doing the therapy.  I have sensory issues myself.  So, I guess it's a trade off... and I still don't comprehend about the brush technique.  It's supposed to, in small children, organize their brain better or something like that.  Tried it on myself for a couple weeks and it didn't do anything with my over-sensitivities.  Guess my brain is already wired.  

Her language and receptive language have had no noticeable change either positive or negative.  And she still has a limited diet.  Just getting overwhelmed more with sounds, smells, and visual stuff.  But, the not having the OCD like behaviors is a good thing... so which is better?  Having sensory issues or OCD/ritualistic behavior?  I really really don't know.  I have sensory issues.  I live with them every day and have my whole life.  It's not something I want my daughter to go through in life, but I don't want to cause her to be so rigid and inflexible because that's not an easy thing to go through in life either (I also was recently diagnosed with mild OCD which I have had my whole life).  My gut instinct is to not do the therapy since if I had to choose between one or the other, having her mind the way that is natural for her to have it may be the best option.  I just don't want to trade in one problem for another.  I suspected this link for awhile, but decided to try it out to see if it was real.  Yup.  OT stuff actually might be doing more harm than good?  Who knows.

My daughter does not like the brush or compression techniques. She tolerates them, though.  She does like getting massages.  She is such a goof ball... today she was having me give her a hand massage after I gave her a manicure (I tell her it's a manicure when I clip her nails and she gets all excited and feels all grown up).  I also give her lots of back rubs which she loves.  Sensory wise, massages fulfill a sensory need.  So, maybe I should give her massage therapy instead of the brush/compression therapy?  I don't know.  She's not even 3 yet.  She's so young.  But if her brain is still developing, I don't want to screw it up.

[Sally44]

I sent a really long reply to this and the website crashed and it deleted it all!
Anyway, the upshot of what I was saying is that I do get frustrated sometimes with professionals because they seem to be quite ridgid in their way of thinking especially around treatment plans etc.  Obviously they don't have autism in their family and they don't understand like you and I do about how we ourselves have some traits of autism and probably understand our kids on a better level then they do.
Anyway that said, I really don't know what to advise.  If she really doesn't like the programme then I would probably continue with the massage, and you could consider introducing something like a trampoline which would still introduce the deep muscle/bone pressure, but it would be with something she would like rather than the hugs that she doesn't like.
I'm not sure about the connnection between the treatment plan and the OCD tendencies that you mention.  I wouldn't necessarily think they were OCD, I would rather put them in the category of rigid routines and behaviours about how she dresses herself.
I haven't tried these therapies on my son.  An OT is assessing him now and they may suggest something in the near future.  I am not sure about their approach of trying to make the child seem as 'normal' as possible.  For example the OT has said that she would like to work with him to reduce the need to wear the eardefenders he has.  I'm not sure what I think about that.  My son is autistic.  I don't want him to 'appear normal, or be taught to behave normal'.  The strategies we use of eardefenders and Irelan glasses make it possible for him to tolerate environments that would normally upset him.  And I don't see the point of him 'appearing' to be 'normal' because it wouldn't take long for someone to see that he wasn't.  In some ways the eardefenders and glassess almost warn people that he is different and it makes them much more accommodating towards him.  If I were to send him into a situation without the eardefenders and glasses then people would have certain expectations of him that he could never meet.
I think, regarding your daughter, that you will need to use the brush and compression therapy a number of times and remove it a number of times to see if, on each occasion, her 'OCD tendencies' are reduces.
You say that if you stop the therapy her sensory issues are more pronounced.  Can you tell, if you haven't done the therapy, if when she is getting dressed she is not so preoccupied with the sequence (OCD behaviour), but is more preoccupied with the sensory aspect of dressing.
Your daughter is very young.  Maybe you need the OT to try to explain to you again what the therapy is trying to achieve.
I have also had a number of specialists recommend that I teach my son to crawl because it helps with brain construction.  This might be something else to work on.
Regarding ridgid behaviour.  This is something I have noticed, but don't really understand the relevance of it.  I now have my son on a GF/CF diet.  I am not completely strict with it ie. once a week I allow him a favourite food regardless.  But what I have noticed since starting the diet is that he is not so restricted in what he will eat.  Previously his favourite food would have been a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.  He has recently began to eat salad (cabbage/carrot/parsley/lettuce etc).   And tonight he tried boiled cabbage for the first time!
I think all you can do is ask the specialists for clarification of what they are attempting to achieve, and weigh that up against what you know about your child and about yourself because I think you do have a greater understanding of these difficulties than some other parents have.  
I know it's hard to think you maybe doing something wrong, but your experience is as of much worth as the professionals.

[Sally44]

I suppose, to clarify a bit further, if an OT where to say to me that they wanted to work with my son (who was blind) and help him not to depend so much on his white cane and on using braille, then I would really be concerned.  To some extend I don't think the professionals get it.  These children/adults are functioning on a different scale.  To remove the supports they have that help them cope seems ridiculous to me.  The aim is surely not for them to 'appear normal', but for them to able to function as best they can in the environment.  If that means they need eardefenders, glasses, something to fiddle with etc, then let them have it.
I'm not against working with any child to help de-sensitize them.  But don't remove their supports without replacing them with something that works as well.

[888mom]

Daughter continues to be more flexible with her routines.  Her developmental therapist noted today (she comes once a week so is first time since I stopped the brush/compression therapy) that certain toys they usually play with that my daughter has to play with her way or gets fussy, well, she didn't fuss at all.  She was fine with turn taking (she usually is with minimal fuss, but this time she was really good at it with absolutely no fuss).  The therapist also stacked colored block pegs in this board out of size order and again my daughter didn't fuss about that either (usually everything has to be lined up by size, color, and shape).  She wasn't getting zoned out in the puzzle.  I think legitimately she is getting less rigid from me stopping these sensory therapy things.  

The developmental therapist made a comment about the therapy.  She said my daughter may have well indeed needed it 9 months ago, when her sensory issues were impacting her auditory processing ability (she couldn't even recognize her name or any words).  Within a couple days of starting the therapy we noticed immediate improvements in her auditory/language processing and she was responding to her name.  I guess the therapies help really young kiddos develop that part of the brain or something.  Her receptive language is really good at this point and developed.  She has problems with understanding questions, but she knows probably 95% of what we say and talk about.  So, the developmental therapist (who also knows about these techniques because she used to use them on her son who has ADHD) said that it may be time to drop those techniques and figure out other ones.  She said if my daughter likes massage, do massage instead.  She felt that maybe part of the change may be that my daughter was reacting negatively to the compression/brushing since she didn't particularly like it, and I had to do it every 3 to 4 hours, so she thought maybe she was subconsciously rebelling against that ritualistic therapy thing with ritualistic behaviors of her own?  Anyways, no way to tell the reason why... I'm just noting the what and not the why.

On another topic you brought up...
What are ear defenders?  Are they more tolerable to wear than ear plugs?  I have a lot of problems with noise.  Also I've been trying to find out about tinted glasses for myself as well.  People will hopefully think I'm trying to be cool with the tinted glasses.  The ear defenders sound great for places like church (loud sound system), movie theaters (again really very loud sound system), shopping, get-togethers, etc.  My daughter luckily doesn't have the sensitivity to sound, but she does have sensitivity to light and visual things.  When she gets older, maybe I can find her some special tinted glasses.  She loves her sunglasses and wears them a lot of places we go now.  I think it helps her out in brightly lighted places.  Also with the sun so bright and intense in the summer outside they help too.  

You are right to be frustrated with therapists trying to normalize our children.  We have a really cool developmental pediatrician who has been seeing our daughter since March.  I wish we didn't have to move so far away that we could come back.  He won't be covered on our new health insurance, so we couldn't afford him even if we did travel back.  But, he told us to watch out for therapists and school systems who try to normalize her.  I have had to fight with 2 out of 3 of her therapists about certain issues where they were trying to normalize her.  The speech therapist didn't want me to let my daughter get so obsessed with the alphabet at 25 months (she knew the alphabet in order at 24 months and did letter recognition).  At 25 months she knew the order on the computer keyboard.  At 30 months she started showing reading readiness signs.  I felt that if she is interested, let her learn.  The speech therapist felt that no, she needs to concentrate on learning to speak before learning to read.  I basically ignored her and said forget it lady.  My daughter's developmental pediatrician said that was good that I ignored the therapist on that issue.  Speech therapist also is into trying to break kids of rigid behaviors.  My daughter does puzzles the same way every time.  She orders things in her brain.  Again, what normal 32 month old can do a 25 piece puzzle?  My daughter can, and yeah, it's not normal, but heh, it's pretty impressive.  If I tried to stop her from doing her puzzles her way, she would stop learning in her way.  The speech therapist does things her way when she's here for that one hour a week, but I let my daughter do puzzles however she wants to the rest of the week.  And so what if my daughter is learning to read when she can barely speak.  That's pretty cool and impressive too.  (My husband read by the time he turned 3, and he turned way more than just fine.  My brother also was reading at age 3, and again turned out just fine even though he couldn't bounce a ball at age 8, who cares).  Anyways, I know the frustration about normalcy.  If I force my daughter to be normal, I know she will shut down entirely and not learn.  I'd rather have a smart girl who is happy and well adjusted, even if she looks a little quirky.  Oh, and the speech therapist keeps telling me that my daughter won't have friends if she isn't normal.  At 2 1/2, she has a bunch of friends, well play mates, who really love playing with her.  They're all boys.  They play dinosaurs, run around.  They totally adore my daughter.  They range in age from her age to age 4.  Most of them are 4, though.  There is a cute little girl who is as about as normal as they come.  Quite verbal.  Quite normal.  All the boys really dislike her, run away from her like she has cooties, and really don't like playing with her because she wants to sit down and do the little tea parties and play dolls, and do the girl things.  So, okay, she probably will have a lot of female friends.  But, is there anything wrong with my daughter having male friends?  Boys are less verbal, more physical in play, and hate sitting around pretending tea parties.  So, how can this therapist keep telling me that my daughter will have no friends when the 3 and 4 year olds every time they see me are asking to play with my daughter?  I figure, let her be herself, and let her be proud of being herself and think there is nothing wrong with being herself.  I think her positive self-esteem as she gets older will get her more friends than being normal will.  Well, to a certain extent.  Schools can be quite harsh.  But, at least with a positive self-esteem, she won't care too much what others think, only what she herself thinks.

[Sally44]

I totally agree.  There are some professionals who try to stop 'obsessions'.  Wouldn't it be better, and more logical, to use these obsessions to 'teach'.  Afterall you will know that they have an enormous amount of attention for the things they are interested in.  Why try to stop that, USE IT!!!
Regarding the ear defenders.  You would get them from a hardware store.  They protect workman against high noise levels.  They look a bit like earphones.  They are big and cumbersome, but they work for my son.
Also google Irlen syndrome and it will tell you about it.  Many children on the spectrum have visual differences which may range from just a hypersensitivity to bright light to total visual fragmentation and visual distortions.  It is also common in children with dyslexia.