Occupational Therapist (OT) meltdowns.

[Jamieh]

E melts down at least once in Occupational Therapist (OT) every week. This week he started out great. He done his bear crawls (usually this triggers a meltdown because they hurt his arms) and his crabwalks and frog hops (also another meltdown trigger) without any complaints and was so sweet to the Occupational Therapist (OT). Then she started showing him how to tie his shoes with- a jump rope and a little wooden shoe. He started getting whiney and said it was boring and too hard. He did do it mostly tho so he got to pick a game to play. he chose hungry hungry hippos. He was the green hippo, I was orange and his Occupational Therapist (OT) was yellow. He has a hard time taking turns so we decided to take turns during the game instead of just doing it like normal. I went first because he was sitting in the middle. He lost it. He kept saying "GREEN goes first because green means GO! And Green is the first color on a traffic light! SO GREEN GOES FIRST!!!" It was horrific. One of his worst meltdowns in a long time. The Occupational Therapist (OT) who worked with him is so sweet and soft spoken. He has had meltdowns on her before and I always feel bad for her because she is new and doesn't really 'know' him very well. His reg. Occupational Therapist (OT) had to step in and calm him down. She said it was an Aspie moment and that to him his logic made perfect sense and we just upset his rules. It's frustrating....all these rules. But overall he done really well in Occupational Therapist (OT) today compared to the last few weeks.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Then she started showing him how to tie his shoes with- a jump rope and a little wooden shoe

Read more: http://www.conductdisorders.com/for...rapy-off-topic-meltdowns-53578/#ixzz2RbYXJz8b

Poor kid.
The Occupational Therapist (OT) is clueless... seriously.
This is one of the HARDEST fine motor skills out there... writing is worse, partly because you don't tie your shoes 100x a day.
And he's doing this at the END of his Occupational Therapist (OT)?

This isn't an Aspie meltdown.
It's motor-integration-overload melt-down... and in my opinion he has a right to it.

If meltdowns are part of every Occupational Therapist (OT) session, then maybe the Occupational Therapist (OT) is trying to cover too much territory for what he can handle in one session.

 

[Jamieh]

this wasn't his reg. Occupational Therapist (OT) and tying shoes is HARD! He usually loses it during the heavy work part of Occupational Therapist (OT) ... bear crawls are normally an issue.

 

[InsaneCdn]

It took my difficult child years to master that one... he was well into grade school before he got out of "velcro" shoes for school.

 

[Californiablonde]

My autistic son wasn't able to tie his own shoes till he was ten. It was a very hard thing for him to master. You're poor son. I can see why he would melt down.

 

[cubsgirl]

difficult child 2 is 17 and still cannot tie his shoes. Thankfully, Payless has black velcro shoes that he just loves!!!! Do you normally have the same Occupational Therapist (OT) each week and this was a new one - I know my son has a hard time with change like that.

 

[buddy]

My son had a brilliant Occupational Therapist (OT) who finally got him to learn. She adapted a program designed for people with one hand. I think at first the right and left side of the lace were differently colored too.
It was crazy...if i can think of it (sorry, a long time ago) I'll post it. But like handwriting without tears for learning how to write (after nothing else worked) thus too was a slam dunk.

I bet both the exhaustion plus his rule being violated were factors. It's often that they lose it over "the last straw". On top of it all, she was not his routine therapist and he had worked hard to do the things that usually caused a meltdown...

For turn taking....a visual, for example a bean bag with a Mayer-Johnson or similar symbol for "your turn" stuck/velcroed on and passed to each person when it is their turn helps. (I wouldn't make it green, smile)...can use any object..popsicle stick, heavy stock paper, whatever.

Overall, sounds like he does work hard.....may want to end sessions with a sensory integrating activity like a swing, squish pile of pillows, deep pressure, etc....

 

[TeDo]

It sounds like a combination of issues that I can totally understand. 1) different Occupational Therapist (OT), 2) VERY hard task and frustration took over...anxiety over not being able to do it causing a fight or flight reaction and 3) VERY logical reasoning for why green goes first.

If he'd been a different color, he would have insisted that whoever had green goes first ..... what difficult child 1 would have done. At his young age, focus on the taking turns and acknowledge his logic. Wait for the "have to learn differences in opinion" for later. As young as he is, the fact that he was willing to take turns was HUGE and should have been celebrated. It's all about picking your battles. This is one that should not have been.

We had 1 awesome Occupational Therapist (OT) that difficult child 1 actually "let in". The last one we had picked battles that didn't need to be so we quit going. It wasn't doing anyone any good.

(((HUGS)))

 

[tiredmommy]

It sounds like he went into overload. Duckie has done that when her senses are overloaded.