Description
This workshop brings together the sensory and motor foundations explored across the movement and praxis sessions. It focuses on how movement is learned, refined and adapted through practice, experience, sensory feedback, feedforward, postural control, motivation and meaningful action.
Participants explore the role of motor learning in developing smoother, more efficient movement, including the importance of repetition with variation, mental imagery, practice, feedback and active experience. The session considers how the cerebellum, basal ganglia, cortex and motor pathways work together to support skilled movement, timing, sequencing, postural preparation, action selection and the suppression of unnecessary movement.
The workshop also links these neural systems directly to praxis. Participants revisit ideation, planning, and execution, considering how each component may present clinically and how challenges may arise from different sensory-motor, cognitive, or regulatory factors. Video examples and discussion support participants to think beyond broad descriptions of dyspraxia, clumsiness or poor coordination, and towards more precise hypotheses about where support may be needed.
The session also considers motor challenges in autistic individuals, including how difficulties with movement, praxis, balance, tone, coordination and social participation may affect confidence, identity, mental health and participation across the lifespan. It encourages therapists to use sensory-motor reasoning not only to understand movement, but also to explain it in ways that can support clients, families, and wider teams.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- describe how motor learning develops through practice, experience, feedback, feedforward and variation
- explain the different roles of the cerebellum and basal ganglia in movement, motor learning and praxis
- identify how postural control, sensory processing, motivation and motor pathways contribute to skilled action
- differentiate between ideation, planning and execution as components of praxis
- use clinical observation to consider whether praxis challenges may relate to sensory motor, cognitive, postural or regulatory factors
- discuss how motor and praxis challenges may present in autistic individuals and influence participation, confidence and social interaction
- reflect on how sensory motor reasoning can support clearer explanations, intervention planning and clinical advocacy
Participants will learn it through focused teaching, clinical discussion and video observation, connect sensory input to motor planning and praxis, apply the concepts to real clinical examples, reflect on the impact of movement challenges across development and adulthood, and take the learning back into practice through more integrated sensory motor reasoning.
