EmphaSIze July 2025: Food and Sensory Differences
By Sensory Integration Education, 1st July 2025
Welcome to the July issue of EmphaSIze where this month we're focusing on Food and Sensory Differences!
Feeding is one of the most complex things we require our bodies to do because it involves every sensory system integrating information about our body and the world around us. This is why children and adults with sensory differences can find certain food types, eating and mealtimes challenging.
In this month's EmphaSIze, we've put together useful information, articles, books and product ideas to help better inform ourselves of how sensory differences can affect children and adults with certain food types, feeding and mealtimes and what support we can offer them.
News & Features
Train as a Sensory Integration Practitioner – Sign Up by 29 July and Save on Course Fees
Looking to transform your practice by training in Sensory Integration therapy?
Accredited by Sheffield Hallam University, our modular Postgraduate Certificate in Sensory Integration offers you the opportunity to qualify as a Sensory Integration Practitioner, giving you the knowledge, clinical reasoning and hands-on experience to confidently assess and treat sensory integration and processing challenges using Ayres Sensory Integration® (ASI) based interventions
Applications are now open for the September 2025 intake of our Postgraduate Courses and if you sign up by 29th July, you can benefit from a discounted fee! Click here to find out more.
Looking for help with funding your Postgraduate studies?
If you’re seeking financial support from your employer – whether you’re in the NHS or private practice - we can help you with that too! We’ve created two funding request templates which you can download for free:
Download the template for NHS staff
Download the template for staff in private practice
3 Things Impacting Eating Skills, Apart from Food Preferences
Many children face challenges with eating that go far beyond food preferences. This blog highlights three often-overlooked areas that can significantly impact eating skills: posture, motor development and the sensory environment.
Poor postural stability can make sitting and eating uncomfortable and exhausting, especially when high chairs or seating arrangements don’t offer adequate support. Gross and fine motor skills are essential for bringing food to the mouth and chewing it effectively. And the sensory aspects of the mealtime environment, such as lighting, noise, and smells, can distract or overwhelm children, reducing their ability to focus on eating. With practical advice and suggestions, this blog helps parents understand and support their child’s feeding journey more holistically.
Thoughts from a Therapist: Just Take A Bite
In this month's Thoughts from a Therapist blog, Anna Willis explores the often-misunderstood challenges faced by children with extreme eating difficulties, highlighting how these behaviours go far beyond typical “fussy eating.”
Drawing on the SOS Approach to Feeding, Anna outlines a compassionate, play-based strategy that gradually helps children tolerate and eventually engage with food, starting with just being in the same room as it.
Empowered & Informed: What Your Peers Are Saying About Our Certified Sensory Inclusion Facilitator Course!
The first cohort of our Certified Sensory Inclusion Facilitator course is complete and we’re delighted with the feedback we’ve received:
"… the course has been really easy to use, fits amazingly around full-time hours and has been such a supportive space to learn and connect with others. What has blown me away really is the sheer amount of resources that have been shared and mentioned throughout the course - each one so helpful and many I would have never found if not for this course."
"I really enjoyed this course and found it to be really informative. Working in an Acute Mental Health setting we see a lot of how the environment negatively impacts people’s sensory needs and I found this course to be really helpful in identifying ways that this can be improved for future patients."
"I really enjoyed this course… As an assistant psychologist it will allow me to co-facilitate sessions with the OT team and have an understanding of patients’ sensory needs on the ward."
"This course was genuinely amazing! I feel better informed and have learnt an insane amount. I truly feel more confident to support the patients I work with going forward."
If you’re interested in becoming a Certified Sensory Inclusion Facilitator, the course is now open to all and you can sign up at any time!
The course explores the foundational theory of Ayres Sensory IntegrationⓇ (ASI) and how to apply these principles alongside the Person, Environment, Occupation (PEO) model to better support individuals with sensory processing differences across the life span. It will provide you with a strong foundational understanding of sensory processing differences and how to support individuals in everyday settings.
FREE Summer Sensory Survival Kit
As wonderful as the warmer weather, longer days and opportunities for travel and relaxing are, the summer season brings its own challenges.
If you are working with clients who are wondering how to best prepare for the change in weather, breaks from school routines, eating outdoors, travelling and staying in holiday accommodation, then our free Summer Sensory Survival Kit will help them to navigate the sensory challenges of the summer season.
Download a free copy of the guide here!
Also see:
How autism can affect your relationship with food
Eight signs of dementia in a loved one include one you spot at meal times
ADHD Symptom Spotlight: Overstimulation
Penryn Falmouth Foodbank 'More Than Food' programme
Serco leisure centres introduce quieter hours in support of people with sensory processing issues
Resources
Take a look at our books and products recommendations for this month:
Food Refusal and Avoidant Eating in Children- A Practical Guide for Parents and Professionals: This book provides parents with advice and training on how to support their autistic children to achieve a healthier and more balanced diet. Avoidant or Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is due to sensory hypersensitivity and can impact a child's health, their family life and social life.
Before the Brave Bite: Empowering Your Sensory Sensitive Child to Explore New Foods: This book follows a young boy named Darwin who has sensory sensitivities regarding food. Despite having a short list of preferred food items, Darwin learns to explore new textures and flavours at his own pace.
The book emphasizes the importance of empowering children to take charge of their food experiences. It reassures young readers that it’s okay to have preferences and that their feelings around food are valid.
Munchkin Stay Put Divided Plates: This set of 2 baby plastic plates with dividers and a strong suction cup on the bottom of the toddler plate is ideal for fussy eaters. There are 3 sectioned compartments for weaning or serving different foods and the deep sided green and blue toddler plates mean they can easily spoon feed on their own
Visual Food Choices Board: This food choice board is a great visual resource with 40 popular food item pictures which can be used as flash cards. The board is a useful tool for children to communicate with parents and carers about they want to eat and drink.
SI Research Digest
Below are links to the most popular sensory integration and sensory processing research papers and findings published on our social channels last month:
This recent study investigated the relationships between picky eating behaviour, food and texture preferences, and tactile thresholds on finger and tongue. The researchers found that if participants had a more positive evaluation of different textures when feeling them with their hands, they presented with less picky eating behaviours.
Nature and Success: Outdoor Play is Linked to School Readiness
This recent study investigated the impact of outdoor play on school readiness and found that children who played outside regularly (more than 3 hours per day on either a weekday or weekend) demonstrated better outcomes in the following areas: early learning skills, self-regulation and social-emotional development, and were more likely to flourish.
Vestibular Function in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Neglected Sense?
This new study highlights the high prevalence of vestibular sensory processing difficulties (39%) in children with neurodevelopmental disorders and the importance of assessing vestibular function in this population.
Upcoming Courses and Webinars
We have a number of live webinars that take place throughout the year covering a broad range of SI-related topics. Below is a snapshot of webinars happening over the next few months or click here to view a summary of all the upcoming live events.
All these webinars are available to you by signing up to our Lifelong Learning Programme or can be purchased as individual courses:
Ø(Sensory Spotlight Talk)The Just Right Reach: Understanding Affordances and Sensory Discrimination in the Process of Praxis with Tracey Murman Stackhouse – 22 July 2025
ØIntroduction to MYSET© - My Sensory Experiences Tool – 9 September 2025
ØSensoRSE- A Sensory Approach to Relationships and Sex Education – 15 September 2025
Ø(Sensory Spotlight Talk) Sleep and Sensory Processing in Autism with Dr Shelly Lane – 26 September 2025
Introducing August LLP Webinar Replay Month
August is our LLP Webinar Replay Month where throughout the month Lifelong Learning members will have the opportunity to re-watch (or watch for the first time!) some of our most popular webinars from earlier in the year:-
- Sensory Spotlight Talk: Womb to Tomb: Understanding Brain Development – Dr Varleisha Lyons
- Clinical Reasoning for Postural Control Challenges in Sensory Integration – Teresa May-Benson
- Sensory Processing & My Experience of an Eating Disorder – Rachael Thompson
- Gestalt Language Processing & Sensory Integration - Naomi Ash and Kate Jennings
- Neurodiversity & Sensory Needs in HMP Pentonville – Olivia Ward
- Sensory Processing & Dementia – Case Study Approach – Leanne Duggan
If you'd like to take advantage of our LLP Webinar Replay Month and are not yet a Lifelong Learning Member, you can find details on how to sign up to the Lifelong Learning Programme here.
Latest Job Listings
Are you thinking of making a career move this year? Check out our latest job listing:
Sensory Integration Occupational Therapist, Family Futures CIC, Islington, London, UK
Discounts & Special Offers
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Best wishes,
Sensory Integration Education
NB: Sensory Integration Education is not responsible for the content on external websites. Sharing a resource does not imply endorsement by Sensory Integration Education.
