lightbulb moment

Logan has something called bilateral vestibular hypofunction.  Basically, that means that his inner ear, his balance center, doesn’t function properly.  He struggles with everyday things like sitting (and staying!)  on chairs and walking down the street.  With vestibular issues come vision issues, and Logan is no exception.  He has difficulty with something called visual figure ground discrimination, which means that it is difficult for him to find a single item in a busy setting.  Where’s Waldo books?  Forget it!  And when you combine his vestibular issue with his (significant) hearing loss, you have a problem.  In addition to not hearing well, it’s HIGHLY likely that Logan has an auditory processing dysfunction.  Auditory processing dysfunction is when the brain and the ears aren’t communicating well, and the message received does not match the message sent.  We see evidence of this every day.

The lightbulb moment?  Today, when I read that people with bilateral vestibular hypofunction have to rely on their senses of taste, smell, and touch to get appropriate input from the world (since their eyes and ears and balance don’t work correctly).  THAT is the likely reason Logan is so danged tactile, always always always touching.   It helps explain why I say ‘take that out of your mouth please’ 150 times a day to like he’s 2 instead of 6.   And it made me realize, again, just what a complex puzzle he really is.

<sigh>  We still have SO far to go…