Description
This collection brings together three linked workshops focused on sensory reactivity, modulation and regulation. It is designed for therapists who want to deepen their understanding of how sensory experiences can influence arousal, emotional responses, behaviour, participation, wellbeing and everyday life.
Across the collection, participants explore how tactile, vestibular, auditory and olfactory processing can shape comfort, attention, movement, sleep, social interaction, anxiety and occupational engagement. The collection considers sensory reactivity not simply as behaviour, but as an expression of differences in sensory modulation, neural processing, emotional response, autonomic activation and lived sensory experience.
The workshops also examine the wider neurological systems that support regulation, including the reticular formation, limbic structures, stress response systems and interoception. Participants are supported to understand how sensory hyperreactivity may become linked with anxiety, avoidance, distress, sleep disruption, reduced participation and chronic stress, while also considering the complexity of hyporeactivity, registration and discrimination differences.
Through focused teaching, clinical discussion and video-based examples, this collection supports more precise reasoning about sensory distress and regulation. It encourages therapists to respect the person’s sensory experience, consider context carefully, grade sensory input thoughtfully, and use regulation-focused strategies in ways that are individualised, purposeful and clinically reasoned.
Workshop included:
- Sensory Reactivity and Modulation: Touch, Vestibular Processing and Regulation
Explores tactile and vestibular reactivity, including protective sensory processing, C fibre touch, gravitational insecurity, intolerance to movement, sensory distress and regulation. - Sound, Smell and Arousal: Auditory Processing, Olfaction and the Reticular Formation
Examines auditory and olfactory processing, sound sensitivity, smell, arousal, sleep, attention, emotional responses and the role of the reticular formation in regulation. - Limbic Links, Stress and Interoception in Sensory Reactivity
Brings together sensory reactivity, limbic processing, stress physiology and interoception, with attention to internal body awareness, emotional regulation, mental health and participation.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this collection, participants will be able to:
- describe sensory reactivity as a behavioural expression of differences in sensory modulation and neural processing
- explain how tactile, vestibular, auditory and olfactory systems can influence arousal, emotion, behaviour and participation
- identify links between sensory hyperreactivity, anxiety, avoidance, distress, sleep disruption and stress responses
- differentiate between hyperreactivity, hyporeactivity, poor registration and discrimination challenges where clinically possible
- recognise the role of the reticular formation in arousal, alertness, sensory transmission, sleep and motor readiness
- explain how limbic structures and stress response systems contribute to emotional responses to sensory input
- describe interoception as a multidimensional system supporting internal body awareness, regulation, wellbeing and sense of self
- consider how sensory reactivity and interoceptive processing may present differently in autistic individuals
- reflect on how therapist interaction, context, pacing, graded sensory input, deep pressure, proprioception, breathing and mindful awareness may support regulation in practice
Participants will learn through focused teaching, neuroscience explanation, clinical discussion and video observation, connect sensory reactivity with arousal, emotion, stress and interoception, apply the concepts to real clinical examples, reflect on how sensory distress affects participation and wellbeing, and take the learning back into practice through more integrated regulation-focused reasoning.
