Sensory Podcast for Allied Health Professionals

By Sensory Integration Education, 13 December 2023

health professionals looking at notes. Title reads Sensory Podcast for Allied Health Professionals


SI on the Fly - the podcast bringing all things sensory integration to Allied Health Professionals on the go - is building up a fascinating free catalogue for you. 

Squeezing in time to consider new perspectives and challenge assumptions can be tricky for busy Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) but, if you take into account the sensory integration or sensory processing of your clients, then there is an easy solution. The new podcast from ASIP (Association for Sensory Integration Practice) now has five episodes released to listen to, for free, at your convenience. A new episode is released each week. 

Recent episodes of SI on the Fly include:

Sensory Integration and Demand Avoidance: Ideas to Inspire SI professionals' CPD

Episode #1

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.

School Distress and Sensory Processing: A Research Paper Discussion

Episode #2

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

Demand Avoidance from a Neuroaffirmative Perspective

Episode #3

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.

History of the PDA Diagnostic Label

Episode #4

Kimberly Elter and Caroline Robinson explore how the term PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) emerged, and how this relates to their more general feelings about the usefulness and limitations of diagnostic labels. They think about how the DSM5 framing of PDA under the wider autism umbrella does not necessarily fit with their clinical experiences, and what this means for intervention and support.

Resources for SI Practitioners Working in Schools

Episode #5

Kate Broughton and Amy Stephens review the Building Bridges resource and think about how it might be useful for SI Practitioners working in special and mainstream school settings.

Building Bridges Through Sensory Integration: Therapy for Children with Autism and Other Pervasive Developmental Disorders by by Paula Aquilla, Ellen Yack and Shirley Sutton (2015)

(As an Amazon Associate, SIE earns from qualifying purchases.)

We’re looking forward to Episode #6 which considers Why Some Strategies Which Help Autistic Learners Don't Help Learners With Pathological Demand Avoidance.

You can subscribe to SI on the Fly, for free, so you never miss an episode:


spotify badge