Somebody asked, “How can I tell if my child’s reaction to some sensory input is ‘just toddler behavior’ or a sign of some sensory processing difference?” That’s a very good question. And to some extent, if it feels like so strong of a reaction or so big of an upset that it’s dysfunctional, or it’s … Read more
In the infamous “Duck Cake” episode of Bluey (season 2, ep 44), it’s little sister Bingo’s birthday and she is looking through a cake book for which cake she would like to have for her birthday. She chooses a duck cake because, when she looks at it, her tail starts wagging, which she knows means … Read more
A challenging thing about having children with vastly different sensory processing styles, or about having a very different sensory processing style yourself than your child, can be finding solutions in your family that meet both needs. I get requests to write about this “sensory mismatch” a lot—for good reason! It’s a complicated topic. It’s a … Read more
I had the opportunity to speak to a group at one of the schools where I work on the topic of discerning whether kids’ “behavior” could be motivated by sensory processing, or whether it’s just “acting out”. (If you’ve been following this page for any amount of time, you might guess the spoiler alert that … Read more
“They’re actually not playing dangerously.” I tell this to my own body. My own nervous system. My own fight-or-flight response. Because of the way the noise feels. It pounds against my ears. It sends jolts down my skin. What I want to do is hide. What I want to do is cry. What I want … Read more
The transcription of the whiteboard can be found at my intro post for this series: What the Therapy Gym Is. When I set out to write this as a helpful reminder for the adults who take children to use my therapy gym to self-regulate throughout the day, I spent a lot of time thinking about … Read more
Last year, I had the opportunity to train some of the staff at one of the schools I work at about how to use the therapy gym as a place for some of the children to use regularly to self-regulate throughout the day — i.e., as opposed to only coming in there with me during … Read more
Interoception may not even be a word you’ve ever heard before, let alone know what it means. At its most basic, interoception is “inner body sense”. On top of the five senses that we all know and learned about, there are other senses as well. Interoception is the one that, for example, can tell you … Read more
The only reason I’m writing this post about this show is because it’s a show my child is obsessed with right now, so I’ve watched the episode 41,392 times. It’s not because I think the whole show is horrible or that this example is particularly egregious — just a single example I happened to see … Read more
After my post about the very basics of the 4-quadrant sensory processing model, a lot of people asked me more questions about “sensory missers” (in specific) and just the “passive” side of the axis in general. I ended up writing a lot about it in the comments section and thought it was a helpful post … Read more