Description
This workshop begins the series by placing movement and praxis at the centre of sensory integration reasoning. Rather than treating praxis as an additional or later topic, the session starts with the sensory systems that support body awareness, postural control, movement through space, action planning and motor learning.
Participants are introduced to key proprioceptive and vestibular contributions to function, including deep touch pressure, body position, muscle activation, postural extension and flexion, balance, gaze stability, spatial orientation and visual vestibular integration. The session also revisits important foundations from Ayres’ work, highlighting the central role of sensory-motor processes in movement, interaction and development.
Through clinical teaching, discussion and video examples, participants are encouraged to move beyond broad descriptions such as “clumsy”, “seeking movement” or “poor coordination”. Instead, the workshop supports more careful clinical reasoning about what may be contributing to a person’s movement, postural and praxis difficulties.
The session also emphasises that sensory systems should not be considered in isolation. Proprioceptive, vestibular, tactile and visual systems work together to support posture, movement, spatial awareness, motor planning and adaptation. This helps participants think more precisely about assessment, intervention choices and the role of active, meaningful movement in therapy.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- describe how proprioceptive and vestibular systems contribute to posture, movement, body awareness and praxis
- explain key links between sensory integration theory, movement, postural control and motor planning
- identify clinical signs that may suggest proprioceptive or vestibular contributions to movement and praxis challenges
- use video observation to develop more precise hypotheses about posture, body awareness, spatial orientation and motor planning
- recognise the importance of active movement in supporting proprioceptive input, cerebellar processing and motor learning
- discuss how vestibular, proprioceptive, tactile and visual systems work together to support coordinated movement through space
- reflect on how sensory motor reasoning can guide more purposeful assessment and intervention planning
Participants will learn it through focused teaching, clinical explanation and video observation, discuss sensory contributions to movement and praxis, apply the ideas to real clinical examples, reflect on assessment and intervention reasoning, and take the learning back into practice through more precise sensory-motor thinking.
