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One of the first questions parents ask when their child is diagnosed with SPD is, “How did my child ‘get’ this disorder? Did it come from me? Was it something I did/didn’t do?”
After Jaimie’s diagnosis, I asked Donna, the first OT who’d worked with her, these very questions because the books I’d read hadn’t been very clear. Unfortunately, Donna’s answer was no clearer: “There could be many explanations for it, from what I’ve learned,” she said. “The truth is, nobody has been able to pin point this for certain. Currently, the most plausible explanations are genetic or hereditary predispositions, meaning it comes from one or the other parent, prenatal circumstances, or birth trauma. But these are only possible explanations and not definite.”
Here are the main causes of SPD currently being investigated with research:
· Genetics: As Donna said above, genetic or hereditary causes seem to be one of the first explanations we lean toward. I’ve been told by some sources that it’s thought to come from the mother or mother’s side. But I’ve met a few families where the father also has sensory issues. This suggests that until further research is conducted, we won’t know for sure which side has the greater impact on whether a child develops sensory issues or full blown SPD.
· Birth Trauma: Another cause that has been discussed—even by Dr. Ayres—is children with sensory issues had some sort of birth trauma. Such trauma can include labor that has gone on too long, birth assistance (eg: vacuum, extractor, etc.) or any action where baby’s oxygen was temporarily cut off. In our case, for example, the attendants “lost” her heartbeat several times during her birth. We found out later that her umbilical cord was too short causing a sort of “bungee cord” effect where whenever I’d pushed, the cord pulled her back. And after she was born, she had to be on oxygen for a long duration of time before her breathing regulated. Therefore, if the brain was deprived of oxygen, even for a short period of time, it can cause damage to the brain.
· Sensory deprivation: Okay, this was a more severe point brought up from Dr. Ayres in her book, Sensory Integration and the Child. I can see how this point would be taken the wrong way so, please, read this part with an open mind. Dr. Ayres saw how children in orphanages in poverty-stricken countries often suffered from sensory integration difficulties. In these cases, such children weren’t engaged sensory-wise the way they were supposed to have been so they never learned how to interact with their environments or the people in it properly. But where we live, we think, “I interact with my child daily. I give her toys and activities that stimulate all of her senses and I play with her yet she still has sensory issues. Why is that?” When Dr. Ayres stated our children were “sensory deprived” she wasn’t talking about the same sort of deprivation those poor children in the orphanages felt. She meant that our children weren’t getting the right sort of stimulation for their disorganized bodies, and so, suffered dysfunction in sensory integration. This is why children with SPD seek out or avoid things in excess because they’re trying to make themselves feel better. So, we may be giving them all the sensory stimulation we know how to and may be filling their lives with bright colors, touchy-feely toys and games and beautiful music but because they’re bodies don’t understand those stimulations, they aren’t getting what they’re supposed to from them.
Donna also mentioned that once some parents figure out what’s wrong with their children, they’ve actually said they remembered experiencing similar feelings as children. So, perhaps, there is a genetic component causing the child to be predisposed to develop the disorder but an environmental factor must occur in order for it to come to the surface or become phenotypical.
Personally, I’ve stopped trying to find a solid explanation because I only end up pointing the finger at myself and this doesn’t help Jaimie at all. If I’ve learned anything, it’s not to waste time to find blame, but to use the time to find out what proactive things can be done to help Jaimie.
Our child doesn’t blame us so we shouldn’t either.
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