My good friend at the Dallas Morning News Mom Blog created a post today about a set of Special Needs catalogs. It got me thinking about all the catalogs I have found over the years. I haven’t posted a blog in quite some time and for that I apologize, but I hope this one will be helpful to some of you.

For those unaware, most Special Needs catalogs have whole sections of products for Sensory Integration. Everyone suffers somewhat from sensory issues, and most of us Spectrumites do quite a bit. I often dream of making a sensory ‘floor’ on a 2 or 3 story house. One for each member of the family attuned to their sensory needs.

To that end, I have decided to share my ‘stash’ of Sensory catalogs I have come across. All of them you can request catalogs from for free. There are some that will keep you on their mailing list and send you a catalog each new season. Each one you can get roughly the same products from, but each has it’s unique items you can’t find elsewhere. All links go to their Request Catalog page as they can sometimes be difficult to find, but keep in mind, most if not all have their catalogs available online as well. I just prefer copies I can take with me to write or put stickies in.

• School Specialty (formerly Abilitations and Integrations) gives various options depending on what you need. I get the Special Needs catalog as well as the Sensory, Learning & Behavior Solutions catalog. My favorite product, which is from their own line, we ordered from them is their Gel-E-Seat as it’s multipurpose. It serves as a weighted lap rest, a movement seat and a fidget. After two years, including a move across country, two very rough preschoolers, it still serves it’s purpose, though has lost some gel. I would still recommend if you have a sensory room. I found it calming as a fidget, my boys used it for it’s other two purposes.

• Southpaw Enterprises, similar to School Specialty creates it’s own line of products. We have yet to order anything from Southpaw, but that’s not saying a lot. We try to find things locally. However, I’m relatively confident that the wonderful therapy center we take the boys to uses their products.

• Therapro, Inc while I’m not aware of their own product line, I am impressed with the items they do have. It’s all well arranged and you can find things in their catalogs that I haven’t seen in any others. I very much recommend their catalogs.

• Flaghouse catalogs are the ones that Leigh was speaking about on her blog. I would recommend reading her blog for information. I have requested my catalogs from them and may update this post later.

• Fun and Function found me today on Facebook. I immediately looked at their digital catalog and found an item I want. They have several types of weighted clothing, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a weighted cap. Their multisensory section while it has some large dollar signs give great ideas on how to create a soft ambient room for calming.

What I typically do is keep these around and refer to them to teachers, therapists and other professionals. I’ve given old copies away to new therapists as they often don’t have their own collection yet. You can also pretty reasonably find gifts for friends and family in them as well. You obviously need to be attuned to their sensory issues, but they make very personal gifts. Of course, they are also great to refer to if someone doesn’t understand quite what to get for you as well (only kidding!).

A month ago we were celebrating the boys’ birthdays. Subsequently, we also had to plan for their yearly IEP meeting. All of those events went well and as planned. Since then though, I have noticed my 5 yr old (the youngest) has become much more impulsive. It’s really been building up. He already has sensory issues, his ASD diagnosis, but it’s becoming ever so clear he is definitely ADHD.

He has no patience. He used to be really good at waiting the 5 minutes for us to stop what we’re doing before attending to his needs. Now he has a hard time waiting more than 30 seconds.  If he doesn’t get what he wants, he lashes out then immediately apologizes. So he knows what he’s doing is wrong, but doesn’t seem to have that process time before he does the action.

So my choices are many. We’re going to implement a ‘Good choices, Bad choices’ system. For every good choice, he gets so many tickets which can be redeemed for things he wants. They use this in the floortime group we have him in and it works for them.  When he makes bad choices, he gets tickets taken away. So he can always do lots of small ‘good choices’ to gain tickets back for a bad choice he did. We need to get a new sensory diet in place as his sensory needs have changed. I really want to try everything before looking up psychiatrists and neurologists to take him to.  We are also thinking about ways to add caffeine to his diet in very small doses. He generally doesn’t like most things with chocolate, won’t drink any drinks that typically have caffeine, so it will be difficult to add it. We’re hoping to see some of his more nervous energy tempered a little. I just don’t want to give him any medication if we don’t have to.

What changes do you think would help? I’m at a loss of where the sensory issues begin and end, where the Autism issues begin and end, and where the ADHD issues begin and end. I can relate to my older son much better because he and I come inward when we get overloaded, but sadly, that is not the case for my younger son.