Brycen's New Compression-Weighted Vest

A few weeks ago, one of the Occupational Therapists (thank you, Gia!) at the clinic began researching a compression-weighted vest for Brycen, feeling that it could benefit Brycen in many ways.  She presented me with some print-outs on reasonably priced vests she found and one was made by Fun and Function.  Later that day, I reached out to my online support group of other ASD parents and one of them (thank you, Lisa!!) found that the Fun and Function facebook page was doing a giveaway for a gift certificate at that time...and the amount of the certificate would cover almost the entire cost of the vest!  So, of course Mike and I entered the giveaway by following the directions on their wall...and we asked many of our FB friends to do the same in hopes that if one of them won, they would donate the gift certificate to Brycen.  We were so humbled by how many of our friends and family took the time to do this for Brycen...and not only did they enter, many actually posted to their own walls asking their friends to do the same!  Within a few hours, I saw posts from people I didn't even know flooding the Fun and Function facebook page in support of Brycen and his need for a compression-weighted vest! 

A few days after the giveaway was over, I received a text from a friend while I was grocery shopping (thank you, Jennifer!) telling me to get on Facebook and that I would be so excited.  After returning home and logging in, I found that we did not win the giveaway...BUT Fun and Function wanted to donate a vest to Brycen anyway in response to all of the traffic we sent to their FB page!!!  You can imagine the tears of joy that I had...the smiles that didn't stop...the immediate overwhelming feeling of gratitude for a company that did not know us but was so generous in contributing to Brycen's therapy needs! 

www.funandfunction.com

Less than a week later, the vest we chose was delivered!  We knew getting Brycen to just wear the vest would initially be a challenge.  Change is not easy for him...and of course the vest doesn't exactly look like his other clothing items.  Luckily, Brycen has some of the most wonderful people surrounding and cheering him on through every battle!  One of those fabulous people is his Speech and Language Pathologist at the clinic (thank you, Bridget!!).  Every single session, she devoted time to encouraging him to wear the vest...in addition to some of his other therapists at the clinic.  10 days later, she and Brycen conquered it!!!  She brought him out of the therapy room to "show off" for all the clinic employees...and he actually was smiling and seeming to love the feel of it.  He continued to wear it (loose, not compressed the first day) through the rest of his therapy, during some of his SCL time with Cari, and then at home before he got ready for bed.  We were ecstatic!!  But of course, looming in the back of my head was if we would have a hurdle this morning when getting dressed.  I laid out his vest next to his shirt and pants on the floor...and he surprised me with actually reaching for the vest with a smile!!  He even stood still (well, as still as Brycen can get!) so I could fully compress it around him!  He continued to wear it to Physical Therapy this morning and then onto school where he is at this moment.  Today we are just working on the compression part, but we will slowly add in some weights over the weekend for certain times so as not to push it or scare him away from it.

Now, many of you are probably wondering what exactly a compression-weighted vest is and how it can benefit Brycen!  Brycen experiences many sensory issues like so many children/adults with Autism.  Specifically it is called Sensory Processing Disorder.  Many people have SPD without having Autism.  One example I can think of is how some people don't like the feeling of tags in their shirts and they just can't concentrate with them rubbing against their skin...only SPD is more extreme and entails so many areas of all the senses.  With SPD, Brycen has a hard time regulating his behavior because of how overstimulated he can get whether it is from touch, smell, taste, noise level, etc.  His body can't process all of that sensory input...therefore he acts in certain ways to try to work through it on his own.  One of the examples for Brycen is "stimming"...specifically he will hum, flap his arms/hands, jump up and down, pace, etc.  Not that stimming is all bad as he stims when he is happy as well, but it's not a very healthy way to work through sensory overload so we want to give him other tools to work through it and regulate his body. 

The compression-weighted vest is two parts.  The compression part is like giving his core a deep hug which we have found Brycen responds favorably to when upset and can be worn all day long.  The weighted part is like helping him to reset and calm down and is only meant to use the weights added in the "pockets" for 20-30 minutes every couple hours.  I have attached a couple links that can explain this better below.  Our goal with using this sensory therapy with Brycen is to help with his concentration/attention span when needing to do "work" at school or other necessary daily living skills.  We also want to decrease his "stimming" as sometimes he will flap so hard he scratches his skin and causes bleeding.  We would also like to see a decrease in aggression though studies have not shown this yet with using the vest...it's just more of a goal we have with everything we do with him!  We are looking towards using the weighted portion of the vest before stressful events like doctor's and dentist's appointments, when going to a new community place that may be overstimulating, and hopefully before haircuts so they aren't so traumatic for all of us.  We will keep everybody updated on his progress with the vest through the blog!

Once again, this would not have been possible yet if it wasn't for the amazing generosity of Fun and Function!  If you are looking for various therapy tools, please check out their website at www.funandfunction.com and let's please return the support to them that they provided to us!!  They are affordable and have some awesome customer service!

http://funandfunction.com/?p=339
http://tips4specialkids.com/2011/09/27/compression-weighted-vests-for-deep-pressure/

Keeping up in Kindergarten

As you all know, Brycen spends a good portion of his day in the kindergarten room with his typical developing peers with the assistance of a 1:1 associate.  When we originally requested this, our intentions were for him to hopefully gain some speech and social skills training from being around his peers...as well as build awareness among the younger generation that having disabilities doesn't always mean you have to be separated from the bunch.  I think Brycen is overall succeeding in all of these areas and from what I have seen and heard, all of the other kids just see Brycen as himself.  I love that!!

What we weren't expecting with Brycen beginning kindergarten is for him to be able to keep up with the majority of the educational aspect of kindergarten.  Kindergarten is so much more advanced these days...they are reading simple books, counting to 100 (and counting by 10's!), and learning far more than I can ever remember knowing about kindergarten.  The teachers and associates keep us up to date very well on Brycen's progress and his worksheets are sent him on a regular basis for me to see what they are doing. 

When I visited the school last week (purpose was to actually fix his "talker"), the special education teacher was working with Brycen on "number sentences" using dominos.  What an awesome tool to use!  Of course, convincing Brycen to start doing his "work" is the hard part...but once he gets started he seems to fly right through it!  Before I left, he had then ventured back over to the kindergarten room with his associate where they were working on math as well.  This time, the kids were given a worksheet to fill in to work on number sentences that equal 6. 

Here is what Brycen's completed work-sheet looks like:

With the help of the associate, Brycen would "roll" his colored beans and then count how many were red, color that many in a box, count how many were blue, color that many in the box and then form a number sentence from that.  I'm sure you can see that Brycen is actually writing his numbers as well...with the help of the associate in some of the boxes, but he clearly wrote the top right number sentence himself of 3 + 3 = 6. 

I never ever expected Brycen to be able to keep up with his peers in these areas!  I know it takes him longer to complete these things and he needs an associate at all times to keep him on task and to show him what to do, but he has come so much further just in the last 6 months than we were thinking he would come in a couple years.  Originally, we were thinking about having him repeat kindergarten but I'm not so sure that is going to be necessary depending on his progress we received from his next IEP in May.  I'm confident he will continue learning (at his own pace, though it doesn't seem to be very far behind) and though he may not be able to talk to us about things, it is obvious that he is taking in more things around him than we ever imagined.

Team Brycen 2012 is HERE!!

Please join me in kicking off our 2012 fundraising by either joining or donating to Team Brycen 2012 for the Iowa Walk Now for Autism Speaks!  The walk takes place the morning of Saturday June 9, 2012 in Des Moines.  Our goal for this year is to have at least 20 walkers and raise over $5000!  Last year we had over 30 walkers participate and raised over $5000....so we know we can do it again!  This is our 3rd year participating in the walk and we have found the support to be overwhelming each year.   

Here is the link to Team Brycen's fundraising page: 

http://www.walknowforautismspeaks.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=998348&lis=1&kntae998348=16D55C969D6949E0A63DD9F61485CD7C&supId=0&team=4940637

If you would like to walk that day (please only sign up if you know that you are definitely walking as the numbers do mean something that day!), click on "Join Our Team" and follow the instructions to set up your personal walk page that is linked on his team page.  When the date gets closer, we will be contacting everyone who has signed up to walk to get sizes for our team shirt for that day!

If you are able to donate, there are multiple ways you can do so: 

• If you want to donate online using a debit/credit card, click on the team member you would like to sponsor (Brycen, Brycen, Brycen!!!) or "general team donation" and follow the instructions.
• Otherwise, you can also mail a check to me (let me know who you want to sponsor or team donation) and I will take care of sending it in to the office in California
• OR you can print off a donation form by clicking on whomever you want to sponsor, then underneath where you would enter the amount of an online payment there is a place to "click here" to print a donation form.  The donation form has the address to mail it to...as well as the bottom portion to keep for tax purposes.

EVERY DOLLAR counts in the fight against Autism!

Autism Speaks is well known for their financial support of many research studies, as well as tools for not only families dealing with Autism, but educators and other caregivers.  Autism Speaks was started by family members of a child with Autism and gives back so much to the community in the fight.
Please visit www.autismspeaks.org for more information!

Thanks in advance for all that you do for Brycen and our family!!  We appreciate all support we receive!  All of the donations are paid directly to Autism Speaks and Brycen will see none of the money directly though it will hopefully be funding a study in the future for known causes and cures which would help not only Brycen but every child in the future that could be at risk.