What a great article! So cool to remember that psychosis and mental illness is more than chemicals in the brain- it begins with every sense the body takes in and how it is understood/integrated. That is what creates the baseline for mental stability and overall engagement in a meaningful task.
Remembering this connection also shows the potential of utilizing sensory profiles (and an understanding of sensory integration in relation to emotional regulation) across settings when mental health is a factor (not only in peds!). All of us have active and evolving sensory systems that change and grow as we age- it affects all of our self-regulation. Using the SP more often can also recenter evaluations on being truly client centered- not only what is meaningful to them, but what is their lived, somatic experience that we could shed light on. Building this attention to the somatic experience in relation to how the mind is able to self-regulate is crucial! We must remember not only the importance of practitioners trying to frame and understand their client’s behaviors with a sensory integration framework, but to build awareness and understanding for the client’s themselves. Awesome article!
Yes! And here’s the FB live where I talk about these exact scores.
Autistic dysregulation is often taken for psychosis.
Good Evening Sarah,
Thank you for this insight on how the pediatric range of patients can most definitely be affected by mental health just as well as anyone else. I think that it is easy for most people to forget that children have big feelings that can be affected by stressors and triggers throughout their daily living that can cause a butterfly effect for later on in life. I feel that psychosis is just now becoming more present and known through medical history because of how much more aware the world is really becoming of mental health and I think that is greatly important to impact the youth of today’s society. The more we are able to pinpoint how to use coping mechanisms within emotional regulation and show children how to truly understand themselves the more we are assisting in creating a healthier community of successful adults.
I found it very interesting that you had added the article on early screening for ADHD within your article suggesting that neurological signs could lead to diagnosis. Do you feel that emotional regulation could be in correlation with sensory overload for our patients in some cases? According to this article I found, they had suggested that within the questionnaires they had assessed that “patients who are involved in multiple sensory stimulating activities can be impacted in areas of awareness and acceptance. How they are being affected is negatively because of how it makes them feel within the sensory experience” (Brindle, 2015). Not only would the patients be affected by the symptoms and diagnosis of ADHD or any psychosis but also the other emotions that could play a huge factor in motivation to find adaptable ways of living. Those feelings could in turn create a much bigger problem and not benefit the diagnosing factor either. How would you go about treating an underlying condition on top of creating a safe environment for successful coping skills to be learned as well as being more aware of triggers before an onset in these young children?
Thank you for your time,
Danielle Dennis, OTAS
Reference
Brindle, K., Moulding, R., Bakker., K &Nedelijkovic, M. (January 5, 2015). Is the Relationship
Between Sensory- Processing Sensitivity and Negative affect mediated by Emotional
Regulation? Australian Journal of Psychology. Volume 67, Issue 4.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12084.
https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajpy.12084
I would LOVE to know more - to get more direction on how OTs can contribute to these kiddos and families. I will try to contact her too!
I apologize if I have mentioned this before, but have been working with the Devereux Social Emotional assesments and resources. Although the main office of contributing staff are psychologist and counselors I have spoken to them to see how OT can be a bigger contributor. The main area of focus is “Resilience” with 3 main areas: Initiative, Self-regulation, and attachment / relationships". obviously we as OTs can contribute so much to this young population. They have great resources and I hope to keep connecting to see how OT can play a bigger role with the very young (infants to preschoolers)!! (esp. when you work in more rural areas without psychologist and/or counselors). I just know that I have a couple of kiddos who are exhibiting much bigger emotions and big affects on their functional behavior, and who I am pretty sure are NOT autistic…I just really feel called to help these kids bc the one’s on my caseload are “falling through the cracks”.
I am also looking for ways I can get connected to some group for (I guess) research in this specific area.
thanks to all for all your contributions!
I will add more as I find it! thanks for the inspiring contributions!
Who, @aharrell, I didn’t know that you worked with Devereux! What a great fit for an OT! I love that their area of focus of resilience. I was actually going down a rabbit hole of Googling resilience and health this week, because I felt like our article of the week on participatory medicine intersected closely with building resilience…
Anyways, I will keep my ear to the ground for research on the role of OT in pediatric mental health, especially for younger kids.
@sarah13, do you personally know Tina Champagne? I was looking at ways to contact her, and I would love to have an email introduction to her!
I understand this is a late post, I am just getting more active on this website now.
Last summer I attended both the AOTA specialty conferences for Children & Youth as well as Mental Health/Opioids. I attended partly because I was presenting myself for an assessment tool I developed and am working on publishing.
Amy Lynch is a professor from Temple University & Kelly Mahler is an OT professor at Elizabethtown College. They both spoke a lot about interoception and the brain science of it being intimately conneted to our emotions. The spoke about the role of trauma and high ACE scores and how they can damage our insula portion of our brain. They also spoke about how children with autism almost always have poor interoception awareness. Kelly Mahler has done extensive work on interoception including writing multiple books and creating the Interoception Curriculum and Interoception Assessment. I am using the curriculum as a pre-cursor to Zones of Regulation. It is essential to teach kids how their body parts can feel like hot/ cold, wet/dry, still/fidgety, hunger, need for bathroom, etc. before we can expect them to put 2 & 2 together to identify emotions of happy/sad/frustrated/angry, etc. I recently presented a summary of what they spoke of at our local state conference. I am diving down this rabbit hole & likely will be starting my own business providing OT through telehealth to both kids and adults. I know this is huge for pain science as well.
Here is my presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRtZu5VmkxY&t=1975s
I developed an assessment tool the Visual Activity Sort visualactivitysort.com which is aimed at adolescents and young adults looking at measuring various things including occupational participation, emotion, pain, interest, motivation and performance ability. It is a set of 117 activity cards that are sorted depending on what data is trying to be gathered. The interest sort is simply sorting the cards onto emoji cards that have a happy/sad face for like/dislike. All areas of occupation are included from toileting to snow sports and volunteering.
I’d love to connect with more OTs working in more of a mental health/trauma/attachment lens. I am all about occupational participation. I have created a group to collaborate about Interoception treatment. Reach out to me if you are interested.
Welcome, @katie2!! Wow! It is great to have you! Trauma and attachment are definitely topics I want to cover next year.
I’m keying in on the assessments you mentioned, because I am building our assessment search. Have you used the interoception assessment? I have some questions about it. You will also have to let me know when your assessment is for purchase! I’ll add it to our search!
Looking forward to future discussions with you!!!
Sarah,
Thanks for emailing me. I have used the Interoception Assessment. It’s actually called The comprehensive Assessment for Interoceptive Awareness. Its a pretty awesome tool. It has different components including The Interoeptive Awareness Interview, the Assessment of Self-Regulation and The Caregiver Questionnaire for Interoceptive Awareness. It doesn’t specify ages from what I have read. I used the second two with a second grader who had a big trauma history. I think the interview would be better with older more self-aware students/adults. Let me know what else I can share with you. I am really thinking about starting a business geared toward telehealth & sensory processing & trauma specifically using the assessment tool I developed and all of the interception information I am gathering (primarily from Kelly Mahler’s products). I also use Sensational Brain a lot as well. I think this could be very helpful for adults with PTSD as well.
Hi Katie,
I recently completed an article about Trauma-Informed Care, especially in the schools and the role of occupational therapy. I briefly discussed the importance of interoception associated with trauma. I find this fascinating, and an area for OTs to explore and address. I would like to connect with you and learn more about the role of interoception.