How to Support a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder

What is Sensory Processing Disorder?

Even though Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is the most common term used, experts in health and social care, including the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, do not formally recognise SPD as a medical diagnosis. Instead, they describe it as sensory processing difficulties.

And we see why. These involve how the brain handles incoming sensory information, which can affect behaviour, learning, and daily functioning. Children, young people and adults who experience these difficulties have issues receiving and processing sensory input from their senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, balance, proprioception, and interception). The brain’s subconscious process has trouble producing suitable responses. Around 16% of children in the UK have shown heightened sensory processing difficulties, with a higher prevalence in autistic children, children with a learning disability, ADHD, or early life complications (e.g., prematurity).

Practical Strategies to Support a Child with SPD

Children with SPD experience lowered quality of life because it affects their behaviour, social interactions, learning, concentration, and self-care. When the difficulties become more intense and frequent, it can result in anxiety, behavioural issues and sleep disturbances. Therefore, a child’s overall well-being becomes central when it needs appropriate support. Here, we have pointed out practical strategies to help children feel more emotionally secure and improve their life skills.

So, how to help a child with sensory processing disorder? Here, we have pointed out practical strategies to help children feel more emotionally secure and improve their life skills.

Creating a Sensory-Friendly Environment

Designing a sensory-friendly environment involves crafting a personal space that responds to a child’s natural instincts, helping them to feel secure, calm, and able to concentrate.

Some of the elements that a sensory-friendly environment should include are:

• Control lighting (dimmable lights, blackout curtains, or soft lamps to reduce visual overload)
• Reduce noise (noise-cancelling headphones, soft furnishings, or white noise to absorb sound and loud noises)
• Quiet zones (teepee tant, sensory den, or a corner with soft textures to offer a safe and quiet space)
• Use calming colours (muted, soft tones like pale blues, greens, lavender, or off-whites)
• Limit visual clutter (use baskets, tidy boxes, and calm wall art instead of overwhelming posters or open shelving).

Using Sensory Tools and Aids

Sensory tools and aids offer targeted and meaningful support for children with SPD that can calm, stimulate, or regulate their sensory system depending on their individual needs. Using these tools along with professionals, your child will experience:

• Regulated nervous system
• Reduced sensory overload
• Reduced meltdowns
• Improved focus and learning

• Improved emotional and self-regulation
• Enhanced self-awareness
• Greater comfort and predictability

Sensory Integration Therapy

As a play-based, child-led intervention that uses carefully planned activities to help the child response more appropriately to sensory input. This therapy approach is developed by an occupational therapist and neuroscientist (Dr. A. Jean Ayres), and delivered by specially trained occupational therapists (OTs).

What does it involve?

• Individual sessions that expose the child to controlled sensory challenges, like swings, climbing, or textured materials, in a structured and playful way.
• The OT helps the child respond to sensory input more adaptively through “just right” challenges.
• Often includes parent coaching and strategies to use at home and in school.

Many studies have supported this therapy and have shown apparent effectiveness and positive outcomes for autistic children, children with sensory processing difficulties, dyspraxia and attention challenges. The treatment is most effective when goals are individualised, the therapy is intensive and consistent, and parents are part of the plan.

Creating Structure and Predictability

Creating structure and predictability is one of the most effective and gentle strategies for supporting children with Sensory Processing Difficulties (SPD). It provides a sense of safety, stability, and control, especially for children whose sensory systems interpret the world as unpredictable, overwhelming, or confusing.

Practical ways to build structure and predictability consist of:

• Using visual schedules
• Using ”First/Then” languag
• Offering transition warnings (give 5- or 2-minute warnings before moving from one activity to another. Use timers, songs, or visual countdowns to make it clear and consistent.)
• Creating consistent routines

• Using social stories or visual guides (personalised short stories with pictures and symbols)
• Providing choice within structure
• Using consistent language and cues

The positive outcomes of providing structure and predictability result in:

⚖️ Reduced anxiety and sensory overwhelm
🧩 Improved transitions between activities
🧘 Supported emotional regulation
🧠 Promoted independence through routine
🎯 Built trust and engagement in home and school settings

What is a Sensory Diet?

It is not if you thought that a sensory diet is about food. It’s about providing the right kind of sensory input at the right time to help a child stay calm, focused, and regulated. It includes a mix of alerting, calming, and organising activities based on what the child’s nervous system needs to function effectively in everyday life.

Think of it as the sensory equivalent of offering balanced meals throughout the day to avoid hunger crashes, except you’re feeding the nervous system.

The purpose of a sensory diet is to reduce sensory overload or under-responsiveness, improve attention, emotional regulation, and self-control, to support transitions between activities or settings, enhance participation in learning, play, and social life and reduce meltdowns, shutdowns, or avoidant or avoidant behaviours. A qualified occupational therapist (OT) with training in sensory integration assesses the child’s sensory profile and designs the plan. It is tailored to:

• The child’s specific sensory challenges (e.g. hypersensitive children, children sensitive to noise, sensory seeking, etc.)
• Their daily routine (home, school, therapy)
• Age, developmental level, and personal preferences

Role of Occupational Therapists in Supporting SPD

Occupational therapy has a central role in supporting children with SPD. OTs are often part of therapy teams, special schools, and private practices. They offer assessment, intervention, and education to help children regulate their sensory needs and fully participate in daily life. OTs play a bridge role between medical insight and everyday practical help.

The work of an OT can be split into multiple phases, starting with:

🧠Assessing the Child’s Sensory Profile

OTs use observations, parent interviews, and structured tools (like the Sensory Profile or Sensory Processing Measure) to:

• Identify the child’s sensory strengths and difficulties
• Determine how these impact participation in everyday activities (e.g., dressing, learning, playing, eating)
• Understand whether the child is sensory-seeking, avoidant, under-responsive, or struggles with sensory discrimination or motor planning.

Assessments are holistic and functional, not just about behaviour, but how sensory issues affect real-life function.

📝 Developing Individualised Support Plans

OTs create a tailored sensory support plan or sensory diet with specific activities and strategies to meet the child’s needs across settings:

• At home (e.g., dressing, mealtime)
• At school (e.g., focus, managing classroom noise)
• In the community (e.g., shopping trips, group play)

Knowing that these plans evolve as the child grows, learns, and changes is important.

🧘 Provide Sensory Integration Therapy

Some OTs are specially trained to deliver Ayres Sensory Integration® Therapy (ASI), a play-based approach in a specialised environment.

It involves:

• Engaging the child in activities that challenge their sensory system in a safe, graded way (e.g., swinging, climbing, tactile games)
• Helping the child learn to process and respond to sensory input more effectively
• Building self-regulation, motor skills, and confidence

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Coach Parents and Educators

OTs support those around the child by:

• Explaining what SPD is in accessible terms
• Helping adults understand the child’s behaviours as sensory responses, not defiance
• Offering training or modelling strategies (e.g., how to use fidget tools, create visual schedules, and adapt environments)
• Collaborating on Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) or school support plans

🏠 Adapt the Environment

Occupational therapists recommend environmental changes to reduce triggers and support regulation. These may include:

• Sensory-friendly classrooms (e.g., quiet corners, visual schedules)
• Home adaptations (e.g., weighted blankets, ear defenders)
• Creating sensory break spaces or movement routines during the day

🪴 The aim is to make everyday life more accessible, not change the child, but change the environment to fit the child.

SPD Support with Leaf Complex Care

At Leaf Complex Care, our occupational therapists play a vital role within our multidisciplinary therapy team, delivering personalised sensory support that transforms lives. By working closely with Positive Behaviour Support practitioners, # families, and support workers, our OTs create tailored sensory plans and adapt environments to support children with sensory processing difficulties thrive. This collaborative, holistic approach ensures consistent, specialist care that supports children and families to achieve their fullest potential.

Leaf Somerset has received the Autism Specialist Award from the National Autistic Society. We are officially accredited for our autism support, meaning our services offer:

• More autism-focused support
• More personalised approaches, always putting the supported person and their families at the centre of care decision-making.
• Increased expertise in supporting autistic people and providing better outcomes
• Reassurance for families/carers

If you need specialist autism support, please make a referral to our therapy team.

Our offices are located in Bristol, the South East, the Midlands and Somerset.

–Developing not just a care plan, but a life plan, written by the person living it.-