ASI Wise & Sensory Project

Ayres' Sensory Integration®: clearing the fog and raising the bar

addressing what matters

There is a lot of talk right now about who can assess and advise in sensory integration, what training is needed, and how this work should sit across disciplines. The noise can feel confusing. At ASI Wise & Sensory Project™, in line with HCPC guidance and firmly focused on the people we serve we believe clarity is kind, and standards protect the people and families we serve. This blog sets out a practical position that teams can use today, with an open invitation to co-produce better pathways together.

What do we mean by sensory integration?

We use Ayres’ Sensory Integration® (ASI) as our shared framework. ASI is user-led. It follows the just-right challenge principle. It is mapped to the person’s unique sensory profile and seeks the adaptive response that supports participation in everyday life. Sensory integration and processing are relevant across the lifespan and across settings, from schools and community services to adult mental health and inpatient care.

1) Who can assess and who can advise?

Specialist assessment
Assessment that identifies patterns of sensory integration strengths and difficulties must be completed by therapists with postgraduate training in ASI assessment, supervised practice, and the ability to interpret findings within an occupational formulation. This includes structured clinical observations and recognised tools such as the Evaluation in Ayres’ Sensory Integration®, combined with participation-focused outcome measures. The assessor is accountable for the analysis and the recommendations that follow.

Advising and contributing across the team
Every member of the multidisciplinary team has a role. Speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, teachers, support workers, and carers contribute vital observations and deliver agreed strategies within their scope of practice. They do this best when assessment findings are communicated in clear, plain English and when goals are co-produced with the person and those who know them well.

Bottom line
Assessment requires specialist competence and defensible interpretation. Delivery is a team effort built on co-production and shared understanding.

2) What training is needed?

Not all sensory courses and training prepare practitioners to assess, design intervention with fidelity, or lead service development. When choosing learning for yourself or your team, look for the following.

Essentials for safe and effective practice

• Clear separation of assessment and intervention learning. First learn to plan and carry out assessment, analyse patterns and write an accessible report. Then learn intervention with fidelity, including dynamic assessment in therapy, goal setting and outcome measurement.
• Supervision and mentoring. Skills grow in practice. You should have access to mentoring that helps you apply learning with real people in real contexts.
• Recognised tools and resources. Training should cover structured observations, recognised assessments, case formulation, and reporting that links findings to everyday participation.
• Credit-bearing study routes. Postgraduate credits that map to university awards help services evidence quality, value for money and staff progression.
• Lifespan relevance. Good training speaks to children, young people and adults, including mental health, learning disability, trauma, and neurorehabilitation contexts.
• Fidelity to ASI. Intervention teaching should reflect the core principles of ASI, including playful, meaningful activity, the just-right challenge and a focus on the adaptive response.

How ASI Wise & Sensory Project™ supports you and your team or family

• A coherent pathway from introductory learning to postgraduate modules with university credit options.
• Mentoring and supervision that bridge classroom and clinic, with a strong emphasis on reflective practice and evidence-based decision making.
• Practical tools developed in co-production, such as Sensory Ladders®, Sensory Spiders™ and Sensory Grids™, to connect assessment to everyday change.
• Offerings for whole teams, so teachers, support workers and family members can use a shared language while therapists retain responsibility for specialist assessment and intervention.

3) How should sensory integration fit across disciplines?

Make ASI a shared language, not a silo.
A single, accessible formulation describes how sensory integration and processing affect participation. It guides what to try, what to change in the environment, and how to measure impact. This formulation sits alongside communication, motor, cognitive and psychosocial perspectives.

Three tiers for joined-up practice

1. Universal supports everyone can use. Small environmental adjustments, routine building and sensory-rich opportunities across the day.
2. Targeted strategies for people who need more structure. Coaching for staff and parents, simple plans based on observed patterns, and monitoring to see what helps.
3. Specialist ASI intervention when assessment indicates it is needed. This is led by therapists trained in ASI, with clear goals, dynamic assessment during sessions, and measurable outcomes.

Respect boundaries. Celebrate collaboration.
Therapists trained in ASI lead on specialist assessment and intervention. Educators, carers and other professionals integrate sensory-informed strategies within their own scope. The person and their family help set goals and decide what success looks like. Everyone tracks progress together.

What good looks like

• Person-led and co-produced. We start with what matters to the person and those who love and support them.
• Clear reports that drive action. Findings are explained without jargon and linked to participation.
• Intervention with fidelity. Sessions are active, meaningful and motivating. Challenge is graded to elicit adaptive responses.
• Outcomes that matter. We use valid tools and everyday measures to show change that people can feel in real life.
• Whole-team carryover. Strategies are embedded in classrooms, homes, workplaces and communities.
• Governance and transparency. Training routes, supervision arrangements and costs are crystal clear for individuals and commissioners.

A quick commissioning checklist

When you commission training or service development, ask providers to confirm:

• Who is trained and insured to complete specialist assessment.
• How assessment and intervention modules are sequenced and assessed.
• What supervision and mentoring are provided and by whom.
• Which tools are taught and how fidelity is supported in practice.
• How credits map to recognised awards and how total costs are structured.
• How learning will transfer to your context, including adult mental health, education or community services.

Our commitment at ASI Wise & Sensory Project™

We exist to help teams make confident, ethical decisions and to support people to participate more fully in everyday life. We will continue to:

• Deliver inclusive, research-informed education across the lifespan.
• Provide supervision and mentoring that nurture reflective, accountable practice.
• Share open-access resources through our community interest work so no one is left behind.
• Champion co-production and the voices of lived experience in everything we do.

If your team is wrestling with the questions above, we would love to talk. Together we can turn confusion into clarity, raise standards, and build services that are kinder, safer and more effective for the people we support.

To explore ASI Wise training, supervision and team offers, get in touch. Let us co-produce the next steps with you.