as small as a world and as large as alone

2:10am August 23, 2014

karalianne:

madeofpatterns:

youneedacat:

“They did a study on sensory integration and it didn’t help autistic kids at all.”

karalianne:

into-the-weeds:

chavisory:

karalianne:

I was told that by a staunch ABA supporter once.

I didn’t have the words to counter this at the time, but here are the words now.

Did they use the exact same techniques with all of the subjects? Because that’s not how sensory processing differences work.

What was the criteria for inclusion in…

Also, a lot of “sensory integration” therapy involves aggravating the sensitivities in question.  Which doesn’t actually result in desensitization, for the most part.

Just because the sensory therapies don’t work because they’re badly designed doesn’t mean that sensory differences in autism aren’t real or a huge source of surface behavior.

What the study actually found is that sensory supports didn’t decrease autistic behavior. The kids were still autistic. They weren’t assessing for calmness, quality of life, ability to focus, etc. Just indistinguishability. Which sensory integration…..doesn’t…..target…..

Thank you, someone knew what study it was! I never bothered to look it up because I knew it hadn’t been done properly anyway.

Just proves the bias of the researchers.

Which is one of those variables a lot of people don’t bother to consider.

Of course, it’s one of those studies that probably gets trotted out by ABA proponents as “see, it doesn’t work but ABA does” when, you know, sensory-related therapies aren’t meant to make someone “indistinguishable from their peers” they’re meant to help them calm down and stuff.

And yes, there are definitely people who practice sensory-related therapies incorrectly, too. Far too many people think all autistic people should be brushed or given deep pressure, etc. and that’s only true for certain people. You need to assess everyone carefully and watch responses and make sure that what you’re doing isn’t putting them into shutdown… which can look like calming down if you don’t know the person really well. And if it’s shutdown, well, you’re now abusing the person instead of helping them.

I don’t actually believe in sensory integration theory or sensory integration therapy.  They’re simplistic and they don’t take into account how autistic sensory processing actually works.  They’re just like these theories that someone’s painted over the reality, and they don’t actually mean anything.  Like they’re too tidy.  ”Hypersensitivity looks like this, hyposensitivity looks like that, seekers look like this, avoiders look like that, this is what we do for this, that is what we do for that,” and 99% of it is complete bullshit.

Autistic people do have differences in sensory processing, often major differences, but sensory integration theory is not an explanation of autistic sensory processing, nor is sensory integration therapy a solution for it, except sometimes by accident.

(My brother and I were both diagnosed with SID as kids btw.)

Cosigned.

They did the brush thing to me.

It hurt. They told me “It feels good. My daughter and I brush each other to calm down before speeches.”

I told them it didn’t feel good. They told me that it would, if I cooperated.

They told me it was really important. Because it would allow me to wear more clothing and not rip the tags out.

I didn’t consider that to be a very good reason.

I feel vindicated every time I see a commercial on TV that advertises tagless clothing.

There’s a person (who I won’t name right now but I know Mel knows them) who has written books about sensory processing and autism. And their entire conception of autism is as sensory processing differences. And their entire conception of sensory processing differences is that a person is just hypersensitive to things or just hyposensitive to things. They don’t think anybody can be hypersensitive to some things and hyposensitive to other things and sometimes it can change. Which I know is wrong because I have “conflicting” sensitivities myself, and sometimes they change.

The book that helped me the most with understanding it all was The Out-of-Sync Child, by Carol Stock-Kranowitz. She’s not writing specifically about autistic children, just kids who have different sensory processing stuff going on than typical kids. She talks about how to tell what someone needs when and how to help them figure out how to make it happen for themselves and a bunch of other really good stuff.

Everybody is different. Even two people with the same processing differences might benefit from different sensory input in the same situation. You’d almost imagine that people are, I don’t know, individuals or something.

The Out of Sync Child was actually a terrible book as I remember it.  I remember trying to get it to fit my experiences, and not getting anywhere.  I remember thinking that it was exactly like I was trying to describe just now:  It force-fit reality around experiences that were real.  I mean, it force-fit a false vision of reality around experiences that were very much real to begin with.  And no, it’s not just about autism, but I could never get it to apply to anyone’s life that I actually knew.  It was simplistic and awkward and wrong.

I’m not sure who you’re referring to, Olga Bogdashina or someone else?

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