Special Needs

Anyone use a spio?

Our OT said she is going to recommend a Spio for my little guy soon. He has low tone in his core but really strong arms and legs. (He had OHS so his poor core has been through a lot.) we are working on assisted sitting now but he's having a hard time with it.

Just curious if others had tried a spio and how it went!

https://www.spioworks.com

Re: Anyone use a spio?

  • That is a good deal cheaper. The spio is insanely expensive. I'm hoping insurance can cover it.
  • DS2's old OT recommended one for him. Early intervention for us would have paid for it 100%. They do have a waiting period and for us it would have been 1 year. That might be something to look into if he is in EI or a similar program in your state.

    The OT let us borrow one from the clinic we go to for a month. DS2 hated it. Even after a month he wasn't used to it and just wanted it off constantly. He ended up being a cranky mess every time it was on and never calmed down even with it on a good chunk of time. 

    After trying it for one month, we ended up needing to switch OTs. Our old one was allergic to our cat and couldn't continue with us. His new OT wants to see how he does for a while before deciding if he needs one. 

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  • Yes, he has early intervention. I just met with his EI and she assured me it would be covered. He also has Medicaid Tefra, so it may be covered through that. She is hopeful we won't need to get to the Spio, but we shall see! Thanks for the information!
  • YES! We have two SPIOS and love them!

    My insurance (school district top plan) covered all but $67.  The original cost was over $500 for just TWO.

    I will say that for us, DS has some mild hypotonia and overall clumsiness that is most likely vision caused.  He just started vision therapy last week. 

    That said, his biggest problem is his speech delay.  I noticed after a week of wearing the shirt, he had a sudden speech explosion.  It was crazy.  I think that the shirt calms him and he is able to listen better and his body is not in the constant fight or flight mode and working hard to process his environment.  My son has a pretty significant receptive language delay.  I feel like the shirt has helped TREMENDOUSLY.  He is a VERY happy kid and FULL OF ENERGY.  He is hard not to like and I think this shirt is one more piece to the puzzle of helping him be able to actually "understand" what he hears.  There is nothing wrong with his hearing, but he just has so much trouble processing it.  His echolalia is almost completely gone too. He is quite a little puzzle because he actually scored higher on his expressive language than his receptive.  Most kids its the other way around.  I wish it was the other way around since from what I read is usually a better outcome.  I do need to add though to the layman (I include myself here) he does appear quite bright but I am not sure how much is from his amazing and almost flawless memory.  He started reading letters before 2, reading words by three and memorized all the United States before the age of three and where they went.  I have a million examples of mind blowing things he has done, but we have very simple conversations for his age.  I would expect the conversations to be similar to a NT 2.5-3 year old and he is a new 4.  

    So we started using it about 4 months ago.  He was wearing it all day and off at night.  Then it turned to the summer temps.  It was over 100 for 3 or 4 weeks.  It just wasn't something I wanted him to wear under his shirt or wear in public (he already wears glasses too) so I switched to him wearing it at night.

    I actually did an experiment where I did not have DS wear it for one week and did not tell anyone.  DH made the comment something was up and wondered why DS's behavior was all over the map.  I eventually told DS after waiting to see if anyone else noticed (and they did). 

    I think with anything there can be an element of a placebo effect but my experiment just proved to at least me, that its helping.  I am not sure what is the primary cause for his continued improvement: age, vision therapy, OT therapy, preschool, speech therapy, me/DH/grandma working with him all the time because its most likely all of the above.  I guess my gut says that it is worth trying if you can get insurance to cover it some.  (We opted for both a short and a long sleeve by the way.)  If you have any more questions, let me know.  You do have to wash them cold and hang dry to keep the integrity of the fabric.  That can be kind of a pain
    ;)

     
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