The FAB Pressure Touch Strategies help reduce anxiety, increase communication, and improve behavior with children who have self-control, developmental, and sensory processing challenges. FAB Pressure Touch was developed by adapting and synthesizing evidence-based Massage Techniques, QST, Knickerbocker Sensory Integration strategies, Trager Body Work, and NDT touch strategies to meet the needs of children with developmental, behavioral, and/or early trauma history challenges. However, distinct from the Wilbarger Protocol, massage, and prescribed body work sensory stimulation strategies FAB Pressure Touch Strategies are an individualized goal-directed approach that is a component of the total FAB Strategies program. Strategies that the therapist finds helpful should be taught to interested parents, teachers, and other team members but no minimal amount of intervention is required for results.
Individualized pressure touch and weight bearing activities can reduce anxiety and promote social development in children with Pervasive Developmental Disorder, other developmental disabilities, and behavioral problems. Because anxiety can increase children’s behavior problems, pressure touch and weight bearing are used in FAB Pressure Touch Strategies to significantly reduce anxiety in children with developmental disabilities. Behavioral improvement from pressure touch and weight bearing activities appears related to the activation of proprioceptive receptors that can be independently obtained through resistance exercises. If implementation of the FAB Pressure Touch Strategies improves behavior, children are also taught and reinforced for independently engaging in independent pressure touch and resistance exercises.
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, goal-directed development and implementation of FAB Pressure Touch Strategies is learned as a component of FAB Strategies. An example of me providing intervention utilizing 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&feature=youtu.be
References
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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.
Silva, L.M. Schalock, M., Gabrielsen, C. (2011). Early intervention for Autism with a parent-delivered qigong massage program: A randomized controlled trial. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 65(5), 550-559.