......boundaries and gravity awareness

P ostural Control and Muscle Tone. (Taken from Willard's evaluation):

Tests of postural function that assess muscle tone and antigravity postural control proved challenging for Willard. He had significant difficulty with both antigravity prone extension and supine flexion postures. [Willard was unable to maintain an anti-gravity prone extension posture or a supine flexion posture.

[He was able to assume both postures with facilitation, but could not maintain them for more than a few seconds.] Difficulty with antigravity postures indicates underlying low muscle tone and depressed vestibular processing.

Cocontraction, which is the ability to maintain muscle tension to stabilize a joint against resistance, was also slightly diminished, again suggesting evidence of depressed vestibular processing.

Low muscle tone was also noted to have an impact on Willard's fine motor skills. Ligament laxity was observed. He tended to use his whole arm when coloring

Testing

R eally, it sounds like Willard is a "floppy "kid. At the Spectrum Center we treat a lot of floppy kids. They are known, variously as SI Kids, Sensory Integration Dysfunction Kids, children with Sensory Integration Disorder, etc.

G oing through Tomatis training does give your child more of a sense of self and a sense of boundaries and gravity awareness. (Sensory Integration Tomatis Method Sound Therapy)  
Gravitation and the body map 
laterality and
in the body experience
  • By utilizing the methods of Dr Alfred Tomatis and developing an individualized listening protocol based on the techniques of 
  • Sensory Integration, our trained
  • staff
  • customize a program intended to help you or your child regain his* 
  • gravity awareness and as such, tune up his 
  • vestibular system so that he too can 
  • hit home runs, or, barring that, to at least 
  • read better and 
  • look you in the eye and
  • know who he is talking to when he is telling you to "get off his case."
Yes, my friend, that IS to say that going through Tomatis training does give your child more of a sense of self (even to the point where he may seem Full of himself) and a sense of boundaries,

both physically, as between him and the outside world, and psychologically as to the difference between

I and Thou in a parent-child relationship.

*hers

Benefits

M otor Planning, Praxis (More about Willard)

Tasks that require motor imitation are a measure of motor planning abilities. Willard had a difficult time imitating gross motor postures. It was also observed that Willard was very slow in his execution when attempting to imitate motor postures. He had to think through each posture cognitively before his body could execute the posture.

Willard also had a difficult time with tasks that required sequencing. When asked to rapidly sequence movements of thumb to alternate fingers, it was observed that Willard had accuracy in finger to thumb opposition. The evaluator had to slow down the demonstration of the sequencing pattern in order for Willard to successfully complete the task. He was eventually able to figure it out with the help of cognitive reasoning. Motor planning abilities under lie sequencing abilities and this appears to be an area with which, once again, Willard was cognitively thinking through each movement and also visually watching his/her thumb touch each finger.

Willard's responses were limited and concrete when asked to initiate the motor plan for a novel behavior. For example, when asked to pretend how he would hammer a nail into a piece of wood, rather than pretend to hold a hammer and a nail, Willard turned his hand into a hammer and pounded it against the table.

Actual text of Willard's Evaluation