A Day Without A Compression Shirt

My son has been wearing compression shirts to school since early last fall when his OT at the time suggested it. Many children with autism have sensory issues and crave deep pressure. With Kai, we saw immediate results. From the first time he wore the shirts, he performed much better at school than he did before. So, he has been wearing them ever since.

There have been a lot of ups and downs over these past several months so the shirts are not any kind of magic cure for all of Kai’s behavior issues. In fact, most of these shirts now have holes in them from his biting during times when he is upset. But based on the positive early results, we stayed with it.

Because he’s worn compression shirts to school every day, we have not compared his performance without the shirts since those first couple of weeks.

Until now.

This week was Educator Appreciation Week. Toward that, the other day my wife went to Kai’s school before the start of classes to help serve breakfast to the teachers and staff. That meant that I had to get Kai ready for school by myself.

In the rush, I did not check to see if he had on his compression shirt underneath his other shirt. It was only after he left for school that I saw it on his bed where I had left it for him. He had not worn it.

That day, Kai had his worst day of school in two months. By contrast, his behavior on the rest of his days this week was very good. So, that day is a clear outlier.

Was it the lack of a compression shirt? A scientist would say that one occurrence is not an adequate test. And scientifically speaking it is not. But we are not taking any chances. It’s compression shirts every day from now on.

Update on Low Barometric Pressure and Autism

A couple of weeks ago, I questioned whether low barometric pressure affects kids with autism. My son had his worst day of school on the day that barometer readings in our area hit record low levels.

Since then, I did more research to see if there really was a correlation between the barometric pressure and my son’s performance at school. I found a website that gives the historical barometric levels for any zip code. I recorded the information and compared it to the scores that my son receives on his point-sheet at school every day.

The results were eye popping.

Over the last seven weeks, Kai has averaged ten points better (on a 100-point scale) on days where the barometer reading is 29.90 or above than on days when it is lower than 29.90. On days with high barometric pressure, he is averaging over 90 points, which means that he is pretty focused and behaving well much of the day. However, on the days with lower pressure, he is barely averaging 80 points, which means that he is losing a lot of points for things like not staying on task and not following directions, as well as more severe behavioral issues.

We will have to see if the trends hold up over a longer period of time, but I think it is clear that the possibility of a strong correlation exists.

So, what can we do about it?

If we know that the day could be challenging, we will try to give the school a heads up. Perhaps they can be especially proactive with giving Kai sensory breaks throughout the day. Also, we are still having him wear Under Armour compression shirts; on low pressure days, it may be worth trying a double layer to see if the extra pressure against his body makes up for the lower barometric pressure.

I don’t know if that will suffice. But being aware of a potential problem is the first step toward solving it. As always, I’m open to your ideas.