Fidget toys and compression for anyone

Probably around 10 years ago, I first heard of pressuring kids.  I mean actual physical squeezing.  I was working with some professors of special education, the branch of education that reminds me of the U.S. Marines.  When the regular teachers like me are totally flummoxed and at a loss, send in the special educators!  These professors described how some children, often those who really flinch from hugs or bodily contact with people enjoy, request and benefit from being squeezed by such things as being rolled in a gym mat and having someone sit on the mat with them in it.  While lecturing, they mentioned that the famous woman autistic professor and scientist Temple Grandin, a specialist in animal behavior, built herself a machine designed like one used on cattle.  It enabled her to get in a sort of press and give herself a squeeze with the amount of tension she desired, enabling her to de-stress and calm herself. 

That was the first time I had ever heard of Temple Grandin.  I still have not read any of her books but I did just download "Thinking in Pictures", probably her best known popular book.  During the last two evenings, we watched the HBO movie "Temple Grandin" about her.  It was moving, exciting and informative.  It is easy to hear about a woman, now in her 50's, I think, and not grasp the difficulties she had growing up, getting an education including a PhD and simultaneously changing the world's understanding of autistic people and also changing the cattle handling industry.  It was while watching cattle that the young Temple got the idea for her personal squeezing machine.

Knowing that as an elementary school teacher and an education PhD and professor who had never received any training in the growing field of special education, I did a little reading and listening to my colleagues in the field over the years.  I read some of "A Mind at a Time" by a professor of pediatric medicine Mel Levine.  He lays out the several types of mental difficulties or differences that are being detected in children by those who have the knowledge and insight to detect them.  I have a book by Tyler Cowen, an economist, and Grandin about the economic value of autistics and those who think like them.  As time goes by, I imagine that parents, teachers, physicians and governments are going to find more people who have what was once considered impossible ways of thinking, seeing and using other senses and that their powers can be a big benefit to themselves and others.

I have heard of an educated and patient grandmother who sat in a meeting, knitting.  The chair asked her to put her knitting away and pay attention to the discussion.  She replied that she could pay attention or put the knitting away but not both.  In current classroom parlance, she was saying her knitting was a "fidget toy", something she needed for her fingers to do when attending to the business going on.  Whether it is a body press or fidget toys or a body sock,

more tools to better and economically accommodate more types of people in more situations are going to be found and accepted.