We have been fortunate to have Cris Rowan, a pediatric occupational therapist from British Columbia with us the last two episodes, and she has shared some great information with us! After seeing how technology can really impact our children in today’s fast-paced and advancing world, I have asked Cris to come back for one more episode to share with us some of the strategies that parents, teachers, and therapists can do to help achieve a good balance between sensory and developmental activities, and the use of technology.

Cris reported that in a 10-year period of working in the public school system, she noticed a huge explosion of child diagnoses such as AD/HD and Autism. She was curious about the effect that technology had on the changes that were seen in these children. She started researching this area by asking parents how much their children were using technology when she met with them during school IEP meetings. Then she left her school system position and began to develop class interventions and workshops for teachers and therapists while in her private practice.

Cris shared with us the following steps to successfully unplug children from technology, based on her research and expertise in the fields of child development and technology usage:

• Become informed.
• Parents need to disconnect from technology to reconnect with kids and establish “sacred time” in their daily routines, during times such as car rides, meal times, holidays and evenings, such as one hour before bed.
• Enhance child performance skills in alternate activities to build self-satisfaction (i.e.- climb a tree).
• Ensure critical milestones of movement, touch and human connection are met at a frequency of 3-4 hours per day.
• Address parent misperceptions of outdoor safety.
• Restrict all technology use for toddlers under two years of age, and limit technology use to no more than two hours per day for elementary-aged children. (Cris would love to see TVs outlawed in pre-k and daycare programs.) She also has a rule of one hour in- one hour out to balance play time for children.
• Restrict all media violence (including cartoons!) for children under the age of eight years.
• Remove all TVs from bedrooms.

Cris has also developed numerous products and initiatives to make changes in how children to use technology, and she continues to develop new games, programs and resources for families all the time. Here are some of her products which can be found on her website:

Zone’in is a self regulation program that teaches children to harness their energy to focus and attend, and is complete with simple strategies and tools that achieve immediate results. Zone’in is accessible learning for all students, while making a teacher’s job easier.

Move’in is a two part program. A fun board game assesses fine motor skill components and provides individualized interventions to improve printing and reading. Move’in comes with easy-to-use software to create a database, as well as make custom work and journal sheets.
Unplug’in addresses TV, videogame and internet addictions in children, helping them develop the necessary skills to unplug. Traveling through the Me, We, Earth and Spirit dimensions builds performance skills, empowering children to unplug. Unplug’in brings imagination and creativity back into children’s lives!

Live’in improves child health and promotes a life long love of learning.  Designed for school and home use, the Live’in Resource Guide contains information regarding the negative effects of technology overuse, the Zone’in Research Fact Sheet, Technology Topics for Discussion, Technology Addiction Questionnaire, the Survivor Unplugged Challenge, Ten Steps to ‘Unplug’ Your Kids, Alternate Activities to Technology and the Technology Schedule.

Unplug’in brochures provide parents, teachers and health professionals with useful information and techniques to address TV, videogame and internet addictions in pre-school and elementary aged children.

She has also set up the following child health initiatives which can be found on her website:

• Balanced Technology Management Champion Status: for Canadian Governments, Health Units, Elementary Schools, and Technology Production Corporations.
• Linking Corporations and Communities Initiative- where she is working with large corporations such as Microsoft to redesign some of their programs and get them to put money back into community parks and nature, etc…
• Creating Sustainable Futures Program
• Unplug – Don’t Drug Policy Initiative

If you would like to contact Cris, sign up for her newsletters, participate on her new forum called “The Source”, or view her website, you can find her at:

www.zonein.ca
info@zonein.ca

1-888-8zonein (888-896-6346)
604-885-2666

Remember you have any questions or comments; please post them on The Sensory Show blog.

Thank you again Cris for everything you do. It’s obvious that you are passionate about taking such an active role in making a difference in this world for our challenging, but amazing children!

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Cris Rowan, an amazing pediatric occupational therapist from British Columbia, is back from last week to share some of her expertise on the impact that technology has on a child’s physical, mental, social, and academic health. Please listen to last week’s episode to learn more about Cris, or check out last week’s blog!

She shared some astounding facts with us, including:

• The American Academy of Pediatrics states that children 0-2 years of age should have zero TV time, but they get 2.5 hours on average per day.
• France banned baby TV due to negative effects.
• Baby Einstein videos are linked to children having delayed speech.
• Children should have 1-2 hours per day of total technology use (TV, video games, computer time, etc.). She doesn’t advocate for completely unplugging a child from technology because our future is so dependent on it.

The Impact on a Child Physically:

• 15% of Canadian children are obese. This rate doubles if a TV is in a child’s bedroom.
• 15% of Canadian children are diagnosed with Developmental Delay, which hugely impacts their ability to print and read.
• Stress – a chronic & high adrenalin state is detrimental to our immune, endocrine and cardiovascular systems. 20 hours of technology use per day has resulted in blood pooling, blood clots, strokes and heart attacks. Our bodies respond to technology (i.e.- video games) as being real, causing the body to feel the stress of this type of stimulation.
• Sleep disorders are on the rise and children are having difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep.

The Mental Effects of Technology Use:

• 14.3% of Canadian children have a diagnosed mental illness, such as anxiety or depression.
• Anxiety is the fasting growing disorder in Canada and the US.
• 9% of Canadian children are diagnosed with ADHD. Every one hour per day of technology use prior to the age of seven, increases that child’s risk of attention problems by 10% upon school entry.
• Behavioral problems are being diagnosed at high rates and medication is becoming more of a common treatment. Cris started an initiative called “Unplug-Don’t Drug” in Canada to work on reversing this trend.

The Social Effects of Technology Use:

• Social isolation, suicide, rage and violence are becoming more pronounced with the increase in overall technology use. Brandon Crisp from Ontario and Daniel Petric from Ohio were talked about as examples.
• Media violence is classified as a public health risk in the US now due to resulting child aggression.

The Effects of Technology on Academic Success:

• 15% of Canadian children are classified as having learning disabilities (LD).
• Illiteracy is on the rise as well as children with developmental delays who often have printing and reading deficits.
• The increase in technology use correlates with lower grades, higher drop out rates in high school, and lower university pursuits.

Cris really emphasized the need for parents to have “sacred time” in the home where they are completely unplugged from technology and fully engaged in spending time with their children. She recommends these sacred times to be at least: during dinner time, during car rides and 1-hour before bedtime. Next week she has agreed to come back for a third and final time (for now at least) to help us find ways to balance our children’s use of technology with activities they need in order to grow and succeed in today’s world.

Thank you so much Cris for sharing this information with us today. For the listeners, if you haven’t listened to the previous episode or looked at the blog, I encourage you to do so. If you would like to contact Cris or sign up for her monthly newsletter, you can find her at:
www.zonein.ca

info@zonein.ca

1-888-8zonein (888-896-6346)
604-885-2666

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It’s back to school time, and there isn’t a parent out there who doesn’t want their child to make friends and do well. Preparing children for school isn’t just about getting new clothes and re-establishing sleep routines, it’s also about making sure children’s minds are able to pay attention and learn.

Today we have Cris Rowan with us- an amazing pediatric occupational therapist and child development expert from British Columbia. She has been in practice for 20 years now and has spent the past 15 years working in schools; she is SIPT certified, and she is the owner of “Zone’in Programs, Inc.”- which offers products, workshops, and trainings to improve children’s health and enhance their academic performance. She provides training throughout North America on topics such as Sensory Integration, attention and learning, fine motor development, and the impact of technology on child development. She is also an expert reviewer for the Canadian Family Physician Journal, and she authors a very informative monthly Zone’in Developmental Series Newsletter which is how I found her!

As kids today are changing, and more-and-more kids are having problems with attention, learning and behaviors, Cris talked to us about the most important factors we need to consider when looking at balancing our kids’ daily activities for healthy child development. She stated “studies have found that children who use more that 1-2 hours per day of combined technology (TV, video games, internet, texting), are likely to encounter a variety of difficulties, both at home and at school” and that “wise parents might consider helping their children “unplug” their way back to school, but “pulling the plug” is too extreme”.

Balanced Technology Management (BTM) is a concept Cris Rowan developed, that states children need to learn how to manage balance between activities they need to grow and succeed, with technology use. There are 3 critical factors outlined below that need to be addressed in order to balance good child development based on this concept.

1. Movement – the vestibular system is the sensory system found inside the inner ear which is responsible for helping children to learn their center of gravity, set their core muscle tone, successfully coordination their right and left sides of their body as well as the upper half with the lower half of their body. It also helps the eyes learn to talk to each other for coordinated activities such as reading, copying, etc…

• Young children require 3-4 hours per day of active rough and tumble play to achieve adequate sensory stimulation to their vestibular and proprioceptive sensory systems for normal development.
• Vestibular and proprioceptive input ensures normal development of posture, bilateral coordination, optimal arousal states and self regulation necessary for achieving foundation skills for eventual school entry.
• Infants with low tone, toddlers failing to reach motor milestones, and children who are unable to pay attention or achieve basic foundation skills for literacy, are examples of inadequate vestibular and proprioceptive input.
• The use of safety restraint devices such as infant bucket seats, toddler carrying packs and strollers have further limited movement in children, as have TV and videogame overuse.
• Many of today’s parents perceive outdoor play as ‘unsafe’, which additionally limits essential developmental components that are usually attained in outdoor rough and tumble play.

Cris’s favorite activity recommendations for movement inside the home include: using a platform swing suspended from your ceiling; wrestling; and building forts and knocking them down.

2. Touch – the tactile system is the sensory system throughout our entire body that sends information to our brain about what we touch and feel.

• The skin is the largest organ of the body, with 70,000 receptors per square inch.
• Tactile sensory input is a biological need, and without touch humans would die.
• Tactile stimulation is integral to child health and well being.
• When infants are deprived of human touch, they develop into children who exhibit excessive agitation and anxiety, and may become depressed by early childhood (Dr. Ashley Montagu).
• Technology is grossly limiting access to necessary tactile stimulation, and many children are touch deprived.

Cris’s favorite activity recommendations include: hugs; reading books together; playing “hands-on”; rolling the child tight in a blanket to play “burrito” games; or tucking the child in tight to bed, or into the corners of the couch with a blanket (which is great for anxious or agitated kids).

3. Human Connection – this is defined as the primary attachment bond between infant and parent.

• The critical period for attachment development is the first year of life
• Connection to technology is causing a disconnection from self, others, nature and spirit. This is more and more often seen in a parent who spends time using technology outside of working hours and therefore less time connecting with the family. Cris asks the parents about their technology use first, before looking at their child’s technology use.
• Disconnection is most apparent in children with Autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression and bipolar disorders, all of which are increasing in number and severity.
• Attachment disorders are causally related to child and adult addictions.
• It’s highly valuable to have one parent at home with a child through his or her first year of development (when possible), in order to strengthen this human connection and parent bond.

Thank you so much Cris for your time and expertise on this new and very important topic of balancing our technology use for the benefit of our children!

Next week, Cris Rowan has agreed to come back to talk more specifically about how too much technology use can affect a child’s physical, mental, social and academic health. I highly encourage those who are reading this blog to listen to this episode to get more great information, national statistics and details from Cris on this topic.  I also encourage you to check out Cris’s website, games and products, and to sign up for her free monthly newsletter, which has been amazingly informative to me! You can connect with her in the following ways:

www.zonein.ca
info@zonein.ca

1-888-8zonein (888-896-6346)
604-885-2666

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Every therapist is going to have their own way of assessing a child when first seen and tested for sensory processing difficulties and/or any other related concerns. Today’s podcast will hopefully help you to understand some of the common tests, the reasons why they are done and what they mean in order to get treatment started for your child. I should start by making sure everyone knows that Sensory Integration Disorder or Sensory Processing Disorder (the newest and most accurate term) is based on “theory” and is not totally proven scientifically. As of now, occupational therapists and other health professionals study the nervous system and how it works in terms of brain stem processing and then apply techniques that are expected to be helpful based on what is known from science and current brain research. It’s well known that these techniques are helpful and the right combination can certainly make a world of difference for a child with these difficulties.  The questions at hand are: “how” it exactly works and “why” there are so many factors that make each child’s treatment so different from the next child.  Because there is such variability, it’s very hard to pull a large group of children together, all with the same symptoms, in order to study their response to treatment with the most elite type of research which is a double blind study.

The following categories are often, but not always assessed in order to get a good overall picture of a child’s developmental and sensory processing status. Remember, every child is different!:

1.  Sensory Processing -
Tests for sensory processing are highly variable as there is no set and definitive way to assess sensory processing and monitor progress over time.  The most comprehensive evaluation tool available for testing sensory processing skills is the SIPT test, which is the “Sensory Integration and Praxis Test”.  Therapists can take courses in order to become certified in the administration and interpretation of this test, but there are many ways to get the necessary information in order to help a child get better, so this is only one way to test a child.  Commonly therapists use comprehensive checklists, the Winnie Dunn Sensory Profile, parent feedback and the evaluator’s observation of the child during all testing to make judgments on a child’s sensory processing skills and difficulties.  A comprehensive assessment will give information on each of the child’s seven senses, to determine if the child “over” or “under” processes information coming into the brain from each sense.

2.  Sensory Modulation/Self-Regulation Skills -
These are terms that are similar in their definitions, although “sensory modulation” is the term used to assess the brain stem’s “automatic” ability to maintain homeostasis or calmness throughout the day in order for children to learn, pay attention, have good behaviors and appear to be well-adjusted and well-coordinated.  Children who fluctuate between being overly and under-sensitive to certain types of sensory stimulation (i.e.- touch, or any other sensation, like sound, or movement) within a matter of seconds, minutes or hours, often times have a “modulation” disorder, as the sensory systems cannot balance out on their own.  The term “self-regulation” is used when a child can remain calm and appear to be well-adjusted in an ideal environment, but can’t maintain a good level of calmness when a high level of stimulation or stress is present around him or her.  Kids with self-regulation difficulties can be perceived as being “fine” until they go to a party, eat too much sugar, or get provoked by their peers in some way.  They are often easily excitable, frustrated or quick to anger in “specific” situations, whereas a child with a modulation disorder is experiencing these feelings and emotions more often throughout the day.

3.  Motor Planning/Praxis Skills -
From a sensory perspective, motor planning, also known as praxis, is the ability to quickly and efficiently take in sensory information, process it and respond with a motor action.  Motor planning difficulties impact a child’s ability to transition between tasks, accept changes in plans and routines and be more flexible in nature when plans or activities do not go as expected.  Motor planning difficulties in the broader sense of the word are related to a lack of motor coordination.  This is what you will most likely find if you do a search on the internet for this term, so try not to get confused, as this information may not apply to your child properly, if he or she mainly has sensory-related motor planning difficulties.

4.  Attention -
Attention is the end result of having good sensory processing, self-regulation, postural endurance, eye muscle coordination/endurance and big muscle coordination skills.  It’s also based on a child’s frustration and learning potential as he or she can become avoidant and therefore appear inattentive when tasks are overwhelming or hard.  It’s very important to determine the cause of attention problems, because there are more than a handful of ways to make attention skills better, and the therapist needs to determine how your child is going to make life-long gains in this area.  Food and chemical sensitivities, lack of sleep and high intelligence are other reasons why children may be inattentive!

5.  Muscle Endurance/Tone -
Muscle endurance is based on how long the muscles can hold in a particular body position before they get tired, and muscle tone is based on the amount of messages the brain sends to the muscles in order to keep them activated over a period of time.  Difficulty with the prone extension (superman) and supine flexion (cannonball) positions is strongly associated with difficulty achieving higher level postural control, balance and movement.  These are positions where the child has to hold his back, neck, stomach and hip muscles up against gravity for the assessment.  A lack of endurance or tone is often the reason why children have a hard time sitting still, paying attention over a period of time, or standing in one place without fidgeting or tiring.  Respiratory weakness also effects a child’s ability to sustain good upright posture, attend quietly to tasks when seated at a table, and maintain self-regulation when excited or physically active.  Children are also commonly known to “W” sit to assume a more stable position when they have deficits in their postural stability.  This is not good for the ligments on the inner sides of their knees over time.

6.  Reflexes -
Some therapists believe it’s important to test reflexes which are primitive motor movements that infants and young children have innately built into their bodies for survival and for very basic skills (i.e.- survival skills).  It’s known that these reflexes need to disappear over time in order for children to acquire higher level coordination skills between the right and left sides of the body, as well as between the upper and lower halves of the body.  Sensory therapists often look at the lack of reflex integration to mean “nervous system immaturity”.  This is good general feedback for a therapist to consider when looking at the overall strengths and weaknesses of a child.  The post rotary nystagmus (PRN) test assesses the vestibular-ocular reflex. that gives us information on how well the brain interprets movement at a reflexive level.  The vestibular system is the sensory system that detects movement, which is responsible for activating greater balance, posture, attention, ocular skills, coordination and motor planning skills in the developing child.  This test is used often by therapists who are more experienced in identifying and treating sensory processing disorders, who have a keen eye for knowing how to interpret the results of this assessment.

7.  Bilateral Coordination -
This is an important area to assess as children with sensory processing difficulties quite often have a hard time integrating or coordinating the right and left sides of their body together.  When a child is born, he or she has two brains (the right hemisphere or brain, and the left hemisphere or brain).  Children learn to reach across their body for objects, and cross their legs and even eyes over to the other side of their body as they learn through play exploration.  Each time this is done, a pathway is made in the corpus collosum which is the connector piece between the two sides of the brain.  As these connections are made, skill is being established.  This is why children don’t know how to crawl when they are first born, hold their own bottle with two hands right away, hold their own pacifier, or ride a bike.  Children have to learn to integrate the right and left sides of their body in order to complete all coordination activities that require both sides of the body to do something at the same time.  The body’s extremities can even be doing different tasks at the same time, such as: one hand holds the paper while the other hand cuts, draws or writes.

8.  Gross Motor Coordination/Balance -
Gross motor skills are coordination skills that involve large muscle groups of the body for many activities such as balancing, skipping, hopping, being coordinated for P.E. classes, bike riding, engaging in after-school sports and completing many outdoor recreational activities.  At a more basic level, gross motor coordination skills are required for a child to maintain his or her balance, crawl, and walk.

9.  Eye-hand Coordination Skills -
This term is pretty self-explanatory as it relates to overall coordination skills that involve the eyes having to be lined up with the body to complete a task such as: throwing or catching a ball, batting a ball, and playing many sports or games that involve larger body movements (compared to an activity such as handwriting which is more often considered a visual motor activity).

10.  Ocular Motor Skills -
Eye tracking difficulties can cause frustration or resistance toward any activities involving the eyes, including reading, writing, copying skills and/or sustained attention with the eyes over a period of time.  Convergence difficulties (moving into a cross-eyed position) can affect depth perception skills for activities such as walking up and down stairs or escalators, riding a bike or focusing on table top tasks.

11.  Fine Motor Coordination -
This is the child’s ability to use his or her fingers in a coordination manner for activities such as writing, drawing, coloring, stacking blocks, cutting, tying shoes, buttoning, snapping and zipping clothes (just to name a few!).

12.  Visual Perceptual Skills -
Visual perceptual skills are based on the brain’s ability to make sense of what is seen with the eyes in order to complete puzzles, identify the difference between similar objects, pictures or designs, and to understand how to form letters using diagonal lines, curves and straight lines.  This does not include how well a child coordinates his or her fingers to complete such tasks.  It only considers what the eyes see and therefore what the child understands.

13.  Pencil Grasp/Hand Strength & Dexterity -
A pencil grasp is often affected by a child’s hand strength and ability to maneuver the pencil in his or her hand efficiently (which is dexterity). A child should have a 3-finger tripod grasp for an efficient grasp and his or her hand and arm should not be moving, as the fingers should be doing the work on their own.  This is expected of children when they are in their preschool/kindergarten years now.  There are many fun activities on the internet that can help make hand-strengthening fun for children such as play-dough activities when done with all the play-dough tools, the use of hole punchers, cutting thick paper, using mini-staplers, tearing construction paper or multiple pieces of paper at the same time, coloring or scribbling on paper with tiny broken pieces of crayon (so only 3 fingers can fit, versus 4 or 5), etc….

I hope this is a helpful guide for you and I encourage you to ask your therapist questions anytime you don’t understand why he or she did a certain test, what it means, and how that information will help your child to perform better.  The more you ask questions and become involved, the faster progress your child will make!

Best wishes for fast progress and much success!

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