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SI on the Fly! Join the Conversation

SI on the Fly! Join the Conversation

Written by: Association of Sensory Integration Practice (ASIP)
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 SI on the Fly! is a free weekly podcast for SI practitioners and therapists who are interested in sensory integration as part of their work. These conversations between Advanced SI Practitioners come about organically from the ASIP community’s CPD events and workshops. We’ll be talking about resources, clinical issues, research evidence and more.

ASIP (Association of Sensory Integration Practice) is a unique community for professionals who use an SI perspective in some or all aspects of their work. For less than the price of a cup of coffee per week, you can be part of a community of friendly, engaged, vibrant professionals plus meet your CPD requirements to continue to learn and develop throughout your career.© 2026 Sensory Integration Education All Rights Reserved. Hygiene & Healthy Living
Episodes
  • Sensory Integration and Demand Avoidance: Ideas to Inspire SI professionals' CPD

    Sensory Integration and Demand Avoidance: Ideas to Inspire SI professionals' CPD
    Nov 16 2022
    Leanne Duggan and Kimberly Elter from the ASIP Sensory Integration community of practice introduce our new study focus. For the months of November and December, we'll be thinking about how sensory processing differences link with Overwhelm, Demand Avoidance and a possible "PDA" diagnosis. Catch up with weekly events and discussions at via your ASIP membership. Not already a member of this fantastic community? See the member benefits here: https://sinetwork.co/ASIP Auto-Generated Transcript It's Kim from ASIP and I'm here with Leanne. Today we are here to talk about what's gonna be happening this month, or the cycle I should say, with Demand Avoidance and Overwhelm. And this is a really interesting topic, I think, because it's something that some people are very familiar with and others, like myself, who had never heard of it prior to starting to do the research for this particular topic. So I think it'll be a good one. Yeah, it's not something that's a term that's really come up in my clinical practice, either. And I know we sort of work in almost polar opposite ends of the spectrum in some ways through that in clinical case that it's just interesting that it hasn't really been a term that sort of popped up for either of us. Yeah, so in an adult mental health where I work, it's not something that I've come across. Now I do see how some of the components of some of the descriptions make a lot of sense for my client group, but just the term itself - demand avoidance - it's not something that I'm used to hearing from a clinical perspective. I have kind of asked a couple of colleagues as well. And, you know, they thought it was a very interesting comment or an interesting concept, you know? So I think it's something that is very valuable, but it's just a new term. Yeah, it's similar. I work primarily with children and teenagers, and as you sort of said, the characteristics sort of as part of the diagnosis are quite common in terms of their presentation. In most of I could probably say 90% of my clinical caseload, but it's, yeah, interesting that it just hasn't been framed in this way before. I think like if we look at it in comparison to our last topic, sensory integration outdoors, this is quite the departure. Absolutely, and it's almost in some ways, we've gone from something that is quite familiar for some people, and probably most therapists have considered taking their therapy outdoors or, you know, particularly probably during Covid. It's interesting that was still talking about framing things under Covid, but I think particularly during Covid, we probably all had to look a little bit differently at the way we were working and how he could deliver therapy safely. But yeah, this is a completely different sort of topic again. But I think the breadth of the characteristics that are attributed to the diagnosis will capture a really broad range and audience because it can be sort of applied to lots of different populations and age groups. Definitely. And I think you know, I did one of the specialist perspective videos for SI and the Outdoors and while I've done outdoor groups, I've never done SI outdoors. So it was encouraging me to kind of stretch my skills a little bit and to try something a bit different. I think this topic is doing that yet again because it's reframing some of the things that I'm seeing in clinical practice in just a slightly different way. But looking at it from the sensory perspective is really, really interesting. You know, we do quite a few interesting things coming up as part of this CPD cycle. I think it'll be very interesting to get people involved in the conversation around you know what they think of, you know, demand avoidance on how they see it in their clinical practice. I agree. I think I'm not really looking forward to, and I think in some ways sort of doing some of the prep for the cycle. It's already lent itself to me, really exploring some of those like underlying characteristics that are attributed to the term PDA. And so I'm really looking forward to really honing in on that sort of greater understanding about these factors that could be contributing to what people say is demand avoidance. And I think one of the big keys is usually that sensory processing piece or the environment itself. So it'll be interesting to sort of be able just speak two different therapists in different settings, about sort of their experience of what they would sort of see as some of those contributing factors as well. Definitely. And I think it would be a great opportunity actually for people to get involved in the discussion forums that we run, you know. From an adult mental health perspective, I'd be so interested in hearing other people's experience of this is part of their clinical work. And it will be very interesting as well to see if there is a difference between adult mental health and CAMS? Because I think, you know, the perspectives can can ...
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    13 mins
  • School Distress and Sensory Processing: A Research Paper Discussion

    School Distress and Sensory Processing: A Research Paper Discussion
    Nov 23 2022

    Greg Kelly and Leanne Duggan from the ASIP discuss this recent research paper about school refusal, and think about where it relates to sensory integration difficulties across the lifespan.


    School Distress in UK School Children: Characteristics and Consequences by Sophie Connolly, Katherine Patterson, Eliza Hockey, and Sinéad L. Mullally

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.28.22280324v1.full.pdf
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    15 mins
  • Demand Avoidance from a Neuroaffirmative Perspective

    Demand Avoidance from a Neuroaffirmative Perspective
    Nov 30 2022

    Kimberly Elter and Amy Stephens start to think about how the concept of a "PDA" diagnosis potentially sits in tension with a neurodiverse perspective about the value in individual variation in brains and nervous systems. We expand this to think about where this framing relates to our wider SI practice.
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    15 mins
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