FAB Pressure Touch Strategies reduce anxiety, promote communication, and improve behavior in clients with behavioral and developmental challenges. FAB Pressure Touch Strategies are a unique approach synthesizing evidence-based massage, bodywork, and scrub brushing strategies. FAB Pressure Touch Strategies help children, adolescents, and adults with behavioral, psychiatric, sensory processing, trauma history, and/or developmental challenges.
Distinct from commonly used therapeutic brushing, massage, and bodywork “sensory stimulation” strategies FAB Pressure Touch Strategies are individualized to achieve specific therapeutic goals. FAB Pressure Touch Strategies are a goal-directed component of a comprehensive FAB “Functionally Alert Behavior” Strategies intervention addressing problematic hypo-responsiveness, hyper-responsiveness, anxiety, social skill, behavioral, and developmental challenges.
An individualized program of FAB Pressure Touch Strategies is developed by trained occupational, physical, speech/language, and/or mental health therapists to achieve functional goals. Goals may include increased: attention span, seated attention, communication skills, social interactions, and/or use of safe hands (e.g., decreased physical aggression). Therapists can teach the individualized FAB Pressure Touch Strategies to parents, teachers, and other team members embedded in the clients’ daily routines. Once implementation of the FAB Pressure Touch Strategies is found to improve behavior clients are taught and reinforced for independently engaging in FAB Strategies providing equivalent pressure touch and resistance exercise input.
FAB Pressure Touch strategies include the: Head Crown, Shoulder squeeze, Spine roll, Back protocol tap, Back protocol press, touch on the back, as well as touch and joint compression through the arms, legs, and feet. The FAB Pressure Touch Strategies form can be attached to the FAB Strategies form to provide more detailed touch strategies. In my FAB Strategies workshops for therapists and teachers goal-directed development and implementation of FAB Pressure Touch Strategies is learned. A clinical example of using FAB Pressure Touch Strategies with a preschooler who has Asperger’s Syndrome and behavioral challenges is provided at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8fMdJ6l0AM
References:
Beider, S., & Moyer, C. (2007). Randomized controlled trials of pediatric massage: A review. Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 4(1), 23-34.
Field, T., Henandez-Reif, M., Diego, M., Schanberg, S., Kuhn, C. (2005). Cortisol decreases and serotonin and dopamine increase following massage therapy. Intern. J. Neuroscience, 115, 1397-1413.
Kaufaman, L.B., & Schilling, D.L. (2007). Implementation of a strength training program for a 5-year-old child with poor body awareness and developmental coordination disorder. Physical Therapy, 87, 455-467.
McCrory, E., DeBrito, S.A., & Viding, E. (2010). Research review: the neurobiology and genetics of maltreatment and adversity. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51(10), 1079-1085.
