My SPD 16 month old

by Elizabeth
(Dover, NJ)

At around 11 months we really began to feel that there was something different about our son. He had always spit up a lot, always had trouble sleeping, always overly resistant to strangers and always had serious separation anxiety from mommy. But a few more specific things were beginning to pop up that concerned me enough to get help.

My son only wanted to play with Legos at around 9 - 12 m. He would build with great ease, almost better than his 2 1/2 year old sister. He began separating them by colors. He would cry at least 70% of his waking hours. His was not sleeping through the night and could not self-soothe. I work in an elementary school so I asked the Child Study Team how young a child could be referred. The gave me the number for early intervention and I called right away. Because my husband and I are both teachers in the 7th richest county in the US, we actually fall below the poverty line for our county. That means we get the therapy for free.

After the initial evaluation, my son qualified for general therapy 1x a week and Occupational Therapy 2x month. We took him to a neurologist and are having his hearing checked. After a few sessions of therapy, the occupational therapist has told us our son has SPD. We were worried it was autism, however my son has great eye contact, laughs and can play peek a boo. We did the checklist for SPD on this website with the therapist and it felt like each question fit my son to the tee. It feels good to have a diagnosis so that we can begin studying and giving him every opportunity to adapt and overcome before he even reaches preschool.