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Thursday, February 17, 2005 |
Preemies at School - Why Sensory Processing Disorders?. 1
in 10 children are the product of premature birth, but parents,
teachers, and doctors, may be bewildered by the lack of specific advice
once they are school age. There are clusters of difficulties that are
more common because of the injury and reorganization of brain-based
sensory pathways. A common cluster of difficulties includes -
hypotonia, dysgraphia, auditory processing dysfunction, expressive
language difficulties, and emotional volatility. Many of these children
are also very intelligent, but they may suffer from visual
distractibility, poor sensory regulation, and a great deal of personal
frustration. Many can respond quite well to work accommodations in
school, adjustments in teaching style, and involvement of therapy
professionals like pediatric OTs. Periventricular
leucomalacia and preterm birth have different detrimental effects on
postural adjustments -- Hadders-Algra et al. 122 (4): 727 -- Brain Neurodevelopmental Consequences Associated With the Premature Neonate Periventricular leukomalacia affects sensory cortex white matter pathways Language Shift Among Adults Born Prematurely Auditory Processing and Language Difficulties in Prematurely Born Premature Birth, Corpus Callosum Size, and Verbal Fluency in Boys Prematurity and Disorganized Cortical Development Auditory Impairment in Preterm Infants
6:35:16 PM  Google It!.
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Why Visual Distractibility Often Accompanies Auditory Processing Impairment.
We often see parents shaking their heads - how is it that it's both
auditory and visual processing? But it's not some odd luck, the visual
and auditory systems are tightly coupled, and each makes up for the
other when some problem arises.
We shouldn't think of the brain
having "deficits" - because reorganization is the rule rather than the
exception, and generally loss in one domain, leads to compensatory
changes in the other. Auditory processing problems are accompanied by
increased sensitivities in other senses - and vision is one of the most
common to cause trouble.
The first breakthrough in our
understanding of the yin and yang of the brain's sensory system came in
research studies examining subjects who were either completely deaf or
completely blind. Before there was a technology to image these events
in the brain, neuroscientists had pondered what the auditory part of
brain might do in a deaf person, or what the visual part of the brain
might do in a blind person. Was it a specialized area of brain that
would just never get the right signal? Would it just sit there? Or
would it be collared into doing something else?
The answer: it got put to work by the other senses.
In
this remarkable figure, you can see that the outlined area of brain
(auditory cortex) has now gotten recruited to work for the visual
system. That's great you might say...if you can't hear, there are so
many things that can creep up on you - so increased visual vigilance
can protect you from danger. Yes -that's right, but increased visual
sensitivity also comes with a price. The deaf are also much more
sensitivity to visual distractibility (check out the teaching tips for
the deaf, including recommendations to avoid shiny jewelery)...and in
milder form, but no less significant, many children with central
auditory processing disorders suffer this same fate.
Visual Reorganization in the Deaf
Visual Attention to the Periphery Enhanced in Deaf
Deaf or Hard of Hearing - Teaching & Learning Supports - Trinity College Dublin By Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide. [Edubloggers Links Feed]
6:33:44 PM Google It!.
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© Copyright 2005 Bruce Landon.
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