Workshop Description:
There’s nothing more empowering than learning how to meet your body’s sensory needs for the first time — and there’s nothing more disempowering than realizing you have to share space with someone whose sensory needs compete with yours!

In classrooms, families, and all kinds of public settings every day, people must manage sensory mismatch in order to coexist. But what can caregivers do to make these mismatches more easily manageable?

Kelsie Olds, the Occuplaytional Therapist, starts with the basics of sensory processing and how to identify your own needs or the needs of a child you teach, parent, or otherwise work with. We’ll then discuss how to navigate the tricky situations when two or more people’s needs seem to compete with one another, and how to make sure that everyone gets their needs met.

Learning Objectives:
Participants will…

1. Differentiate between the four sensory processing types and determine which one a student’s behavior might be demonstrating.
2. Develop interpersonal and environmental supports to navigate situations with sensory mismatch equitably.
3. Identify their own (the adult’s) sensory processing needs and supports that help them to remain regulated.

About the Presenter:
Kelsie Olds, “The Occuplaytional Therapist”, shares passionately every day online with thousands of parents, teachers, professionals–and adults simply seeking to heal childhood wounds in their own selves–about the healing and power in play as the core meaningful occupation that underlies childhood. Kelsie has worked on an Air Force base in England; in rural Oklahoma, USA; and currently in Geelong, Australia. They’ve developed a unique perspective on various Western systems of healthcare and education, and the ways those intersect and affect the children they work with every day.