Description
This workshop begins the section on sensory reactivity and modulation by focusing on touch and vestibular processing. It explores how differences in sensory modulation may be expressed behaviourally as reactivity, and how these responses can influence comfort, attention, arousal, emotional regulation, movement, relationships and participation.
Participants revisit Ayres’ early thinking around tactile defensiveness, protective sensory systems and the balance between protective and discriminative processing. The session links this foundation to current understanding of tactile pathways, including the anterolateral system, pain, light touch, temperature, C fibre touch, social touch and the role of deep touch and proprioception in supporting regulation.
The workshop also examines vestibular reactivity, including gravitational insecurity, intolerance to movement, motion sensitivity and the emotional impact of feeling unsafe in relation to gravity and movement through space. Participants are encouraged to think carefully about the difference between hyperreactivity, hyporeactivity, discrimination differences and registration challenges, while recognising that these distinctions are not always clear in clinical practice.
Through teaching, discussion and video-based examples, the session supports more precise observation of tactile and vestibular responses. It also highlights the importance of respecting the person’s sensory experience, acknowledging distress, using supportive interaction, and thinking carefully about how sensory input is offered within therapy.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- describe sensory reactivity as a behavioural expression of differences in sensory modulation
- explain key links between tactile reactivity, protective sensory processing, arousal, emotion and behaviour
- identify how tactile hyperreactivity may involve light touch, pain, temperature, memory, emotional responses and autonomic activation
- discuss the role of C fibre touch, contact comfort and social touch in regulation and emotional connection
- differentiate between vestibular hyperreactivity, gravitational insecurity and intolerance to movement
- consider the clinical challenges of distinguishing hyporeactivity, poor registration and discrimination difficulties
- use video observation to develop more precise hypotheses about tactile and vestibular contributions to regulation, posture, movement and participation
- reflect on how therapist interaction, context, pacing and acknowledgement of sensory distress can support regulation in practice
Participants will learn it through focused teaching, neuroscience explanation and video observation, discuss tactile and vestibular reactivity in clinical examples, apply the ideas to real therapy scenarios, reflect on how sensory distress is understood and supported, and take the learning back into practice through more precise modulation and regulation-focused reasoning.
