![]() Occupational therapists work to promote, maintain, and develop the skills needed by students to be functional in a school setting and beyond. This can reduce the child’s anxiety and exhaustion, and improve their attention and performance. Providing advice and interventions to target each sense, helps the child’s nervous system become more organised and regulated. Making sure a student with sensory processing differences has the right sensory opportunities and environmental adaptations throughout their day, will remove barriers to learning and go some way to improve their wellbeing. Sensory overload may also result in a withdrawal or complete shutdown. When a person is experiencing sensory overload, it can be incorrectly perceived as distressed behaviour. As one student said to me, “I cannot keep reading because my eyes are full up at the moment”. Each sensory input builds and builds without being filtered out appropriately. When we lack the “filters” to screen out irrelevant information, this can cause sensory overload and lead to a meltdown. Research, and my own clinical observations over the years, have also highlighted that many autistic children, or those with sensory processing differences, often have co-occurring difficulties with posture, coordination and motor planning. Experiencing sensory stimuli differently from the neurotypical population is known as sensory processing differences. On the flip side, some autistic people actively seek sensory sensations to calm themselves, relieve anxiety and often just for pleasure and relaxation. However, some autistic children and young people may have difficulty filtering sensory information, and it can become overwhelming, uncomfortable and/or painful. We combine our senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, balance and the sense of our body in space) in order to make sense of our environment. ![]() Corinna gives examples of therapeutic interventions to target sensory processing differences. Gift Aid and making your donation go furtherĬorinna Laurie, Clinical Lead Occupational Therapist National Autistic Society and Director of Evolve Children's Therapy Services Ltd, explains what occupational therapy is and how it can help autistic children. ![]() Our patron, president and vice presidents Parent to Parent Emotional Support HelplineĪdult residential and supported living service vacancies ![]()
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