What Therapists Are Saying:

I wanted to share with you an experiencce I had in the school system. There is a kid we have who has a diagnosis of Autism, sensory processing disorder, and ADHD. He was having a meltdown and threw all the books off of a shelf and had isolated himself to a room. I came into the room while he was laying on a large bean bag in a smaller room in which he went and initiated on his own. I asked the teacher if I could try something and she agreed. I went into the room and asked if I could help him calm down. He agreed. He laid down on his back on the ground and I told him what I was going to do to perform rib rocking. Within 3-4 minutes, and me checking in every so often to make sure this movement was ok, he was ready to clean up the room. I went with him to help (because he's 7 and putting books on a bookshelf can be frustrating). He did get frustrated again and turned to me and said "c'mon I need help calming down". Ha! So we went back to the small room and he allowed me to do rib rocking again. 1-2 minutes later, he was calm again. This was Wednesday.

On Monday, the COTA I work with came in and said Dad (who is an Assistant Principal at a middle school) wanted to talk to me. His son had come home and told them how that technique helped him and was trying to instruct them how to do the technique to help him calm. I visited Dad the next day and discussed what I did, why it works, and Dad is very intrigued. He thanked me for working with his son and reported an increase in verbal skills and communication over the weekend.

I still have TONS to learn but it's stories like this that make me want to know more and more on how to help. There is such a problem of 'noisy brains' that is painful to watch kids go through.

I am looking forward to the foundations 3 class!

Rachel Call MSOT, OTR/L