A friend of mine was telling me that her kid�s preschool teachers think she has Sensory Integration Disorder. I was curious, because I�ve only ever heard of this in the context of some friends who were adopting a child from overseas -- it�s apparently especially common among children who have been institutionalized at a young age. In reading up on this, I�m fairly certain I had this �problem� as a child. And yet it is the very traits that make up this problem that feel most fundamental to my personality. Is it then a problem?

I am, in general, skeptical of the current trend to syndromize every aspect of a child�s behavior that is inconvenient to traditional learning situations. Too much Ritalin, too much diagnosis as a defective or ill child. I certainly don�t mean to imply that there aren�t kids out there who have real physical and behavioral problems who can and need to be diagnosed and helped. But where behavior problems like Sensory Integration Disorder are concerned, does it really make sense to make parents frantic and make children feel inferior at the smallest sign of some of these traits?

Part of my skepticism is due to some early experiences with AJ. When AJ was still in utero an abnormality turned up in one of the battery of blood tests for genetic defects. We automatically got put on the fast track for the fancier ultrasounds. The problem that came back abnormal on the blood test was immediately ruled out in the first ultrasound, but another potential problem. Doctors were uncertain as to whether it was a problem at all, but the worst case scenario would have meant an organ transplant, which sounded mighty serious to us. They continued monitoring AJ for several months after his birth until finally the ultrasound reader at Children�s Memorial said, �There is absolutely nothing wrong with this kid. I don�t know why they keep sending you back here.� The problem, it turned out, was primarily due to an unfamiliarity with the new form of ultrasound, so much more detailed than previous versions. They have not yet had enough experience to know where to draw the line between normal and problem, and thus err on the side of caution. But to us it meant months of worry and left us with a certain amount of distrust for doctors. AJ was perfect, but because something looked slightly different, he was treated as a sick child. I will never forget the first day we took him into Children�s. We were sitting in the waiting room with our perfect happy baby boy. Next to us was a young girl � it was hard to tell exactly how old she was, as she had the bloated belly, skinny limbs and preternaturally aged face of a very sick child. Her mother was sitting beside her reading a sheaf of pamphlets about liver transplants. �Mommy, what�s wrong with that baby?� I didn�t hear her mother�s answer, but the little girl then asked, �Is he going to be okay?� I ran to the bathroom and burst into tears. I knew at that moment we didn�t need to be there. My child was perfect. I wonder about that child regularly, wonder if she got her transplant, wonder if she�s still here, this girl who was worrying about my baby when she herself was perilously ill.

As a child, I had most of the classic symptoms of what is now called Sensory Integration Disorder � an extreme sensitivity to sound, fear of white noise and crowd sounds, hyperactivity and a tendency to bump into things a lot. I remember the fear of sounds vividly. I remember being in a crowd of people and not being sure that I would be able to separate out the sound of my mother�s voice. But for me, that experience was related to my acute hearing (I was once mortified during a demonstration in a science class in junior high where they someone was playing different sounds of a variety of frequencies. He ended by playing something incredibly high. I shrieked in pain as he said, �But only dogs can hear that.� That did not help me at all in the junior high social scene.), what makes me a musician, what has governed my activities and thinking throughout my life. It is part of my creativity, my soul. It�s part of what makes me me. I think that�s why I got so incensed when my friend was expressing concern over her child. What makes them say it is a problem? Is it because there is a name for the collection of behaviors? Why isn�t it just what is? There are, in all likelihood, children at great extremes who have serious problems with this, but I am certain that this child is not one of them.

Moreover, so many of the indicators for Sensory Integration Disorder are normal behavior for toddlers and preschoolers � it�s a matter of degree. But how do you know where you draw the line between normal and not? Doesn�t it make more sense to deal with the children as individuals? It doesn�t seem like a problem to benefit from a mass classification.

For me, my musical interests and talents were indulged. I�m sure that my early training helped me to focus on specific sounds within a more complex context. I started ballet as a preschooler which helped keep me from running into things all the time. My �problems� were treated as gifts, as something that made me special and talented. In the long run, I�m sure that did me much more good than trying to fix me.

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