Our two day workshop is a “great opportunity to reflect on clinical practice and learn new skills”. Find out more about the application of Ayres’ Sensory Integration beyond childhood to support health and wellbeing.
We can also offer 2 or 3 day onsite bespoke training and consultation for your organisation to support the development of sensory integration informed care pathways.
“Early trauma is stored in the body via the senses, this is why therapy through the senses is effective.”Smith, K BPD and SI 2004
Occupational Therapists are ideally placed to work through play and via the senses to promote the development of healthy neurological pathways and structures; impacting the development of sensory motor skills and abilities that underpin our ability to move, learn, play, develop, communicate, think and process emotions.Sensory integration is integral to the process of healthy development ‘when the functions of the brain are whole and balanced, body movements are highly adaptive, learning is easy and good behaviour is a natural outcome’
Ayres, 1979
They can do this with clients who are very young, or those who are adults with childhood trauma, who often find talking therapies very hard to engage with as the trauma memories are stored before language has developed, so are instead stored in the body and via the senses.Postgraduate education in Ayres’ Sensory Integration theory and practice alongside undergraduate education in infant and child development means that occupational therapists are ideally placed to address the sensory-motor needs of looked after children who have often been subjected to trauma in utero and early childhood.
Ayres’ Sensory Integration is a theory that suggests that brain “maturation is the process of the unfolding of genetic coding in conjunction with the interaction of the individual with the physical and social environment. As a result of experience, there are changes in the nervous system.”Spitzer and Roley 1996Sensory qualities of the environment can positively or negatively interact with function and development.Schneider et al, 200
Occupational Therapists working in this area are able to use a discreet but comprehensive range of skills and resources within their scope of practice to offer direct one to one sensory integration – based intervention. These may be with the individual child, while also supporting foster and adoptive families, and typically includes parent participation in therapy. Occupational therapists will also offer parent and family education and work alongside schools and other organisations via a consultation model, offering education, in-service training, supervision for staff.
“Adopted children who have suffered traumatic early experiences are “barely surviving” in the current high-pressure school environment and need greater support if they are to have an equal chance of success, a charity has said.
They are falling behind in their studies because they are struggling to cope emotionally with the demands of the current education system which “prizes exam results at the expense of wellbeing”, according to a report from Adoption UK.”
from The Guardian 27 June 2018
‘Sensory Integration sorts, orders and eventually puts all the sensory inputs together into whole brain function.’Ayres 1979What emerges from this process is increasingly complex behaviour, the adaptive response and occupational engagement.Allen, Delport and Smith 2011
Where is neuroscience going in the future, how will we get here? Sam Rodriques talks to us about problems with current research methods, and why outcomes for clients haven’t changed in years. He proposes what the year 2100 might look like from the weather, to vacuum cleaners and finally what we will know more about Alzheimer’s and how we got there using more up to date risk-free methods.
On our courses, we teach staff from CAMHS and adult/older adult mental health services how to use Ayres’ Sensory Integration to inform care including for those who have had early trauma.
On our in-house courses, we regularly teach mixed staff teams including Mental Health Nurses and Healthcare Assistants, CPN’s, OT’s, PT’s, SLT’s and Therapy Support Staff, Complementary Therapists, Psychologists and Psychiatrists. Working with staff teams from forensic, secure, acute and longer stay units, our lecturers help teams to develop and implement sensory informed care pathways. This includes working with sensory providers to develop secure safe sensory rooms for safe self-regulation and sensory-rich movement activities suitable for secure and forensic environments, where ligature risks mean traditional swings and other equipment cannot be used.
The use of Ayres’ Sensory Integration to support health and well-being has grown across the UK and Ireland.
The research and evidence base is expanding across the globe, with more clinical audits and studies being published that report that Ayres’ Sensory Integration is
this means that there are significant reductions in
We’d like to thank Tina Champagne for pointing us in the direction of this resource which fits so neatly alongside the resources and tools we teach on our courses.
Tina is a critical friend of ASI WISE and wrote several chapters in this free online resource about developmental trauma and practical ways to institute trauma-informed care.
Resources for Eliminating Control and Restraint aka Therapeutic Manage of Aggression and Violence
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/07/vq/restraint-resources.pdf
