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Does music help attention? Does white noise help attention?

Something I saw in I think Smithsonian magazine about using music to help your brain. I liked what they noted about people with attention deficits and how they may calm down in a paradoxical way – ie how taking the equivalent of speed calms them while it “speeds” the rest of us up. Very interesting neurologically.

Anyway, the thing about anxiety – that USED to be the case for me, that when I was frequently (severely) anxious, I listened to Enya while lying in a dark room and practicing diagraphagmatic breathing. But eventually when I thought of Enya it made me anxious because the two became so linked. So then I could no longer listen to  Enya without that association of being panicked. So sometimes it turns on you! My new favorite is Native American Indian flutes, the Canyon Trilogy, by R. Carlos Nakai. Many of my kids in special ed also really enoy it.

This reminds me that I want to do a post soon about white noise. Some studies have come out showing that white noise or classical music can be very helpful for concentration for SOME PEOPLE – especially those with ADD. But for those with “regular” concentration, it can actually be harmful to our attention. When I was in 7th grade, we had a history teacher who was big on playing classical music during our tests. He had good intentions and I know there were/are studies showing classical music helps. But it was a novel stimulus and I know for me it actually made it much harder to concentrate. Try white noise apps for your OT kiddos with ADHD to use while working, and see if it seems to help them out. (In our district our 3rd graders and higher have individual iPads so it would be easy for us to implement but maybe not so easy in most districts). But be careful of using classical music/white noise with ALL children. Better to use as a case by case basis.
Oh. Guess I don’t need to write a new post about white noise, I just wrote it. 😉

hit my sensory limit…

hit my sensory limit for the week. Having a very quiet Friday night at home…..but going to write down some children book ideas before bed. Have been saving pictures and stuff to post to the blog.

Heavy clothes, calm bodies? Blast from the past

One more picture from the Marie Curie article in Smithsonian 🙂 Look at how heavy their clothes were. I wonder how scratchy they were. I’m guessing that perhaps, if nothing else, the heaviness was calming, even if uncomfortable texture wise! No seamless undies back then!! 🙂

I was recently reading Songs of the Gorilla Nation and she was talking about how she always wore leather and dark sunglasses, because the leather was so weighted and calming, and the sunglasses reduced input, etc. I thought that was fascinating because I know we all have seen people in um, unusual or interesting get-ups, and made assumptions. But we all know what they say, when you “assume” you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me”….lol

I want to write more soon about sensory profiles….we all have them!!

Finding and Marketing Your OT Niche

Guest post! Starting…now! 

Finding Your Niche

Marketing Your Niche

Immerse Yourself in the Community

Reaping the Benefit

Norwegian alphabet…bet that AE combo is hard to teach

 
The Norwegian alphabet has three more letters. An AE combo, an O with a diagonal, and an A with a circle over it. Can you imagine teaching three more letters than we already do? For that matter, teaching special ed with much more challenging alphabets than ours…..aughhh

holding sick babies :)

Beautiful nesting puzzles

While reading a “birth story” from some mom in Australia that I found while playing on Reddit (playing on the Internet is like one big ADHD skit), I found this website with stunning toys. Unfortunately this store is located in Australia but I'm guessing with some basic sleuthery (ie, you know, a google search), they may be available here.

What we write is not always read with our own filter…

I took this picture at the airport to remind me to go re-read Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret. I know I liked that book as a child and I too remember it mostly being about puberty. But here in an interview with the author she writes about how she actually wrote it to be about the child’s relationship with God. So I want to go back and read it through that “filter of her intent”, but also, to remind myself that sometimes we make things for one reason and it gets recognized for other reasons (sometimes good, sometimes bad). 🙂 I’m in the process of writing children’s books right now (simple ones, and one of which I hope to get out quite soon) and I want to start a chapter book soon, but want to keep things like this in mind!

Some favorite occupational therapy toys aka popular Christmas gifts :)

I know there are a lot of toy posts floating around out there, and I’m sure they are all way better than mine. But I did want to share three of my favorite things – play visions, safari, and zinkies. I use all of these quite a lot in occupational therapy with my kids and I am a big fan and my kids always want to keep them too.

Nobody is (unfortunately) paying me to say any of that either. 🙂 I can probably put together a more thorough post with more favorites soon, but this is just a quickie. As always use with caution, remember choking hazards, blah blah blah insert common sense disclaimer here. 🙂

NOTE: All these toys are intended for children who do NOT put things in their mouth anymore!! I’m thinking at least preschool age, I use it for elementary school aged kids.