Neurological disorders and sensory issues.

 I've been meaning to post about sensory issues since before I started writing my blog again last year. I was going to wait until I was able to research it a lot more, but I changed the way I decide to post about a recently, and a post that I wrote about noise sensitivity has been viewed frequently since I started paying attention to my blog stats again. Also this is important, I'm going to be mentioning sensory processing disorder in this post. It's possible to have sensory processing or sensory issues in general without having the disorder. I do not try to diagnose people with stuff, but it's also a thing that usually doesn't get a official diagnosis a lot. I'm going to mention two other people in my post. One is a minor, and the other is unable to give permission to rather she would want her first name included, and it would be quite a while before she's able to.

Sensory processing issues in common with both hydrocephalus, and cerebral palsy. Just from what I've been told it sounds like it's common with other neurological disorders too, but I'll rather have someone else write about that later on, so they can at least include personal experience. I'm including hydrocephalus because both me and a kid I'm mentoring has it, and my mentee has cerebral palsy. With hydrocephalus it's common because of the pressure build up on the somatosensory/sensory cortex. With Cerebral Palsy it has to do with the injury to the brain.

Basically when you have Sensory processing issues some or all of senses go haywire. This isn't limited to the 5 main senses either. It might include things like spatial orientation, or sense of balance. For me the big things are noise sensitivity, and not liking to be touch, or be crowded. With my mentee, it's different things but I don't want to go into detail yet without his permission or the permission of his Parents. But I have a friend with cerebral palsy that's a little older than me that had some of the exact sensory issues as my mentee. I wasn't aware of the connection until I was looking up some things I noticed about him that I at least thought was "tics" and found info online for SPD.  

My friend that isn't available to give permission for me to use her name, was given a official SPD diagnosis when she was in the 10th grade, so when she was around the 15 or 16. She spent some time in DES/CPS custody, and has been told that she would have been diagnosed earlier if it wasn't for that. She found out through special education testing. The advice she gave me was to look the kid eye to eye, explain things to him like he was younger than he is, and tell him one thing at a time so he process everything if I have multiple things to explain. My friend's main things are noises and crowds. With her it's more loud noises, but with me it's just certain noises especially scratching noises, or a bunch of people talking all at one time. She also mentioned being triggered by words or things. But I'm going to include that in another post when I've done more research, and I have two days off in a row to write a post. 

 

Hydrocephalus (sensation and perception) 

A little more information about hydrocephalus and sensory issues 

 Cerebral Palsy and sensory processing issues

Adult experience with SPD (hydrocephalus) 

Previous posts about noise sensitivity 

 

 

 

 

 

Customer service experience with a kid with a neurological disorder

I'm going to write about something that was inspired by a positive experience at my job during my shift tonight (Wednesday). I had something else planned but I would have needed to include research and I need to replace my laptop so it would have been hard to do. When I was growing up I knew very few people with neurological disorders, and even less people that were around my age with them. If I knew anyone with Hydrocephalus, I wasn't aware of it. I was a couple of high school and had just started to work at my second job when I met my first close "brain buddy". He has Cerebral palsy, and knowing him has helped me recognize it in other people. I've known others with cp since before I knew him, but they usually had a worse case or I didn't realize what was wrong with them until later. Other neurological disorders can show the same symptoms too though, including Hydrocephalus, strokes and seizure disorders.

About half way into my shift during the busiest part of the evening I walked out of the backroom onto the produce sales floor getting ready to write a list for what needed to be on my next cart or two. A kid that looked like he was 10 or 11 stopped me and asked me if I could check the price on a bottle of sparkling juice that we have during the holiday season. I told him that I had a scanning gun and I would be right back. I saw him walk forward and noticed his limp and that it affected his whole right side, especially his arm. I recognized it right away as having to do with Cerebral palsy or another neurological disorder. I felt bad for him, knowing the challenges that my friend has dealt with and the challenges that people with neurological disorders in general have to deal with from personal experiences. Rather it's being more likely to be bullied, the way people see him or different kind of therapies. I went to the department back room to discover that someone had taken my scanning gun so I told him that I needed to go to the front but I would be back in a minute. I went and got a gun from behind customer service and started to sign into it as I started to walk back in his direction, and I was surprised to see that he had walked across the store and was waiting for me in front of the registers. It ended up being too much and I put it back for him. At some point during this time I noticed what looked like a shunt scar on the top of his head, I noticed because of his short hair cut. I didn't ask because I didn't want to find out I was wrong or point out something he may not want to think about. If he does have it, it might have been encouraging to meeting someone else with it, but I'm sure it was obvious that I at least have a neurological disorder of some kind too. Something that I didn't think of until after he and his family left was that if he does have a shunt it would have probably be visible in his neck area and even if I was face to face with him multiple times I didn't think to look. I ended up running into him one last time, somewhat on purpose because I wanted to do something to make his day without him realizing it was because I felt bad him. I still had the scanning gun in my hand and helped him check a couple prices so he could find a different holiday drink.