We live in a smaller city so I knew that we would need to travel a little ways to a bigger city with more options for T. Riley Children's Hospital is covered through our insurance so we made an appointment for him to see the doctor that specialized in children adopted internationally.
Let's go back in time for just a moment: T. was evaluated when he first came home by an international adoption doctor. At that time, he was 12 months old. One evaluation or observation that was noted was "Due to post-institutionalization, he is at risk for difficulties with sensory processing and should be monitored closely for future growth and development." My thinking....oh, we "rescued" him in enough time. He won't have any of those problems!
Fast forward to 2012....another visit to the international adoption doctor. She felt that T. missed out on some crucial building blocks in mental health as an infant. He is having difficulties being able to handle his emotions and fitting in with his peers. She recommended that we see a psychologist at Riley to help T. with some coping skills that he could use instead of having meltdowns.
So we didn't really get any answers but thought okay...let's go see a psychologist and go from there.
While seeing the psychologist, T. was a handful. He would do somersaults in the office while she was talking to us. He was totally not my normal T. She tried to teach him to deep breath and other coping strategies, but he was 4 at the time. Nothing she was doing was making any sense to him. I was still pushing for an occupational therapy evaluation because I knew in my heart that he was having sensory issues which was prohibiting him from sitting still. We finally received the referral and met with an occupational therapist that specializes in internationally adopted children.
T. had his occupational therapy evaluation when he was almost 6 years old. She found that he has difficulty with emotional/behavioral regulation, difficulty managing anxiety and stress, difficulty calming with upset or excited, and difficulty being comfortable with environmental stimuli. He also has inefficient processing of tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular body information. He also exhibits low core postural muscle strength. She also noticed auditory over responsivity with negative responses to everyday sounds. She recommended clinic based occupational therapy plus a home program to help him meet his goals. The only issue was that this clinic was 3 1/2 hours away!! I had to try to find a clinic closer to home so he could go once a week.
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