How Autism Massage

Helped My Daughter

www.AutismParentingMagazine.com
 How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My
Daughter
Hi, my name is Leslie Burby and I thought that I would share my experience
about how the autism massage helped my daughter Mary. In the next edition
of Autism Parenting Magazine, we will be doing an interview with Dr John
Pagano who is a specialist in a special type of Qi Gong massage that is helpul
for children with Autism.

So let’s start with how I met Dr. John Pagano, (the man who performed the
massage on my daughter.) Did I know him previously?

Well, I didn’t know John. I was taking my daughter, Mary, to occupational

therapy, physical therapy and oral therapy for feeding issues to a special
therapy center in Watertown, Connecticut. Just about a month after we moved
away from Litchfield County and stopped attending therapy sessions, I was
contacted by a person that worked in the Watertown Therapy Center and they
asked me if they could give my contact information to Dr. John Pagano, who
was conducting a study. He was learning a method, of a certain type of autism
massage. It was supposed to be helpful for children like my daughter and since
my daughter was in the age range and a textbook definition of an Asperger
child with behavioral issues that seem to improve with this type of massage
they wanted to try it. At first, I had many reservations. How could a massage
help my daughter? And, I don’t want anybody touching my little girl. Who is this
man? Who’s going to be having his hands all over my daughter’s body. It was
a little scary to me.

How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My Daughter

 How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My
Daughter
However, he understood my reservations because he is a parent, too. He was
very understanding. He gave me a lot of literature to read and a video from
Qigong Institute. It’s called Qigong (pronounced chi-gong) massage and it has
been proven to help children with autism to help alleviate a lot of their anxiety
and symptoms and meltdowns. To help them (children with autism) go to sleep
better and stay asleep longer and all of those were many of the issues I was
having with my daughter on a daily basis. In fact, it would take me about three
hours to get her to go to sleep, even on a strict routine. Once I did get her to
go to sleep she would wake up repeatedly. So I was never sleeping and the
meltdowns were really bad. Now she’ll have a meltdown but it’s only about
once a month, before it was about twice a day. And the meltdown would last
about anywhere between one hour and three hours. She would throw things,
become very violent, harm herself, at one point she harmed her sister, she
broke both the bones in her sisters forearm. Meltdowns were a serious
concern in our house for her safety and for ours.

So after reading the literature, finding out that it was scientifically proven to be
helpful and that he was willing to do this massage for free as a child study, I
agreed to let him perform the massage on Mary. After all this was helping him
learn the method and in turn my daughter would be getting services for free,
which we needed at that time because money was extremely tight. So, I of
course consented and I told him I wanted to be there. He said of course,
parents are always present during the massage, during the entire thing that in
fact the whole purpose of this massage is for the parents to learn this type of
massage. So they can do the massage daily to their child as needed.

How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My Daughter

 How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My
Daughter
The massage is a 9 week course and they come to the house and perform the
massage for 30 minutes. In many states, you drive your child to a center and
they perform the massage on a massage table at the therapy center. In this
case, we did the massage on our couch. We lived in an extremely small
townhouse and the only place was our couch. Mary was very resistant at first
and to help her, we used a special Qigong pamphlet (made by the Qigong
Sensory Training Institute www.QSTI.org) that was meant for children that has
pictures and explained step by step what the therapist is going to do before
they even start. Because like most children with Asperger’s, having pictures or
a chart to explain things, the routine and the order of things is extremely helpful
and relieves a lot of anxiety. So John read the pamphlet to Mary and we
showed Mary pictures so she knew what to expect and she came to really
enjoy it.

At first, to be honest, when John would come, (around dinner time), she would
run and hide and we would have to get her to come out and lay down and it
was an ordeal. And, I was starting to wonder if I made the right decision and if
maybe I should make him stop coming. Was this just one more battle that I
was putting on the family? One more struggle I had to face every day with her?
Just about the time I started to have those reservations, she started to ask for
him on a daily basis.

How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My Daughter

 How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My
Daughter
She nicknamed the massage “patpat” because you actually cup your hands like
this and you pat at the top of the head. That’s actually how you start by putting
this repeated motion and pressure. It helps calm the body and it really helped
her. I couldn’t believe how useful it actually became. So now Mary asks for
“patpat,” whenever she’s having a really bad day. If she’s very stressed and if
she feels her central nervous system is just out-of-whack. I can tell when she is
having a bad day just by looking at her eyes. It’s almost like her skin is
crawling and so she tells me or she’ll ask my husband or I to give her “patpat”
at night. It helps relax her and calm her and she’ll drift right off to sleep.

If she doesn’t have “patpat” she’ll have trouble calming down, relaxing, she has
trouble closing her eyes. She’ll have trouble going to sleep, she’ll have trouble
staying asleep and everything involved with sleep. All day long is a struggle for
her to get through. Her sensory issues will just drive her insane but “patpat” is
extremely helpful.

To chart the progress, we filled out questionnaires. They had specific questions
about what type of behaviors we wanted to see improved, how often she was
melting down? How often she slept? What medications she was on or sleeping
aids?

How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My Daughter

 How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My
Daughter
At the time we were using a very low dose, just one milligram or maybe just
half a milligram of melatonin at night to help her relax and even then it was still
a struggle to get her go to sleep. Neither of us wanted to drug our child. My
husband and I were very much against medicating unless it is absolutely
necessary. We do understand that medications have their uses and they are
important but at the same time we felt horrible giving our daughter melatonin
even though melatonin is a naturally occurring chemical in the brain and it is
safe in low doses. We just subconsciously felt bad. We felt as if we were
drugging our child, it was bothersome. (Always ask your child’s doctor or
behavioral pediatrician what they recommend for your own child’s situation.)

As the weeks went on, we did more questionnaires (BUNSE Checklists) and
they checked in to see if the behaviors were improving, how often the
meltdowns were occurring? If her sleep patterns had improved? And they had.
In a matter of months, it was like all of the major stressors I had before; the
major concerns I had, were gone. I mean of course, she still had the
occasional meltdowns and of course, she still has the occasional bad day but
did the massage work?? Absolutely, and I was probably their biggest skeptic.
I have to say I was presently surprised and John became such a pleasure to
see. Mary looked forward to seeing him.

How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My Daughter

 How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My
Daughter
On a typical “Autism Massage Day,” Dr. Pagano would come in, Mary would lie
down on the couch without her socks and shoes on, and he’d do the massage.
He would ask how her day was while the massage was going on. He would
ask questions like: Oh! Christmas is coming up, what do you want? What went
on at school today? It would take many questions to get any information out of
her because she wasn’t a big talker then. She would give you one word
answers- I’m fine. If asked, “What did you do in school today?” She’d say, “I
learned.” or “I played.” You wouldn’t get any information and after (it was
about) 3 months, it was almost like a different little girl. You’d ask her a
question and she had so much information you couldn’t get her to stop telling
you details- the elaboration was unbelievable and it was really amazing- it was
really touching- it was like there’s little girl in there that so desperately wanted
to tell me all these things and that wanted to calm down and go to sleep like all
the other neuro-typical children (like her sister) to just lay down close her eyes
and go to sleep- but she couldn’t do that- because her central nervous system
was just all haywired- and now she could.

The reason why I wanted to interview Dr. John Pagano is because many
autism methods go unnoticed. I had never heard of Qigong massage and the
Qigong Institute and I want other families to know that there is help and hope
out there. Your child can learn how to sleep better. That your child can learn
how to ask for help such as: I’m having a bad day, can we do the “patpat?”
Can we do the massage? It is helpful for children with autism and it is helpful
for children with other behavioral issues. It is scientifically proven to be
effective and I’ve seen it first hand, which is why next month’s issue will have a
full interview with Dr. John Pagano.

How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My Daughter

 How Autism Qi Gong Massage Helped My
Daughter
Dr. John Pagano continues to use the massage to help children with autism and
other behavioral issues and now gives lectures on Qigong and other OT related
issues. He has his own website www.FABstrategies.com and has a resource
handbook entitled “Powerful Early Intervention Strategies to Help Young
Children with Developmental Problems and Challenging Behaviors (Preschool-
Kindergarten)” made by the Bureau of Education & Research (www.ber.org),
which is “North America’s leading provider of seminar training for professional
educators.”The method that Dr. John Pagano was taught is based on Dr.
Louisa Silva’s Qigong Sensory Training Institute based out of the state of
Oregon. http://www.qsti.org/index.html

Leslie Burby is the former Editor-in-Chief of Autism Parenting Magazine

and a public speaker on autism related issues. She is the author of three
autism related books: Emotional Mastery for Adult's with Autism (2013);
Early Signs of Autism in Toddlers, Infants and Babies (2014); and the
children's book Grace Figures Out School (2014). She resides in CT
with her husband and three kids. Two of her three children are on the
autism spectrum. She is a Board Member for Hope 4 Autism and is
working with IEPHelp.com to encourage schools and parents to work
collaboratively to improve education for all special needs students.
Before becoming a mother, Leslie tutored special needs students while
running her statewide tutoring company, L.D. Tutoring. She attended
Franklin Pierce College and the University of Saint Joseph. Leslie
spends most of her professional time writing, advocating, innovating
new programs and researching the topics of autism and parenting.

This Article is posted at http://www.autismparentingmagazine.com/

how-autism-qi-gong-massage-helped-my-daughter/