With Bev Kadish, occupational therapist and founder of Write Start OT, from a webinar recording on 28 July 2026. Bev explains what sensory processing actually is, introduces the eight senses behind it, and walks through how to build and run a sensory diet at home, from deep pressure and heavy work through to the emergency backpack and the withdrawal area.

Key Takeaways

• Sensory processing is the neurological process that takes in sensory information, organises it, and turns it into a useful response. The definition Bev uses comes from Dr Jean Ayres in 1989.
• There are eight senses, not five. Alongside sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell sit proprioception (muscles and joints), the vestibular sense (movement), and interoception (internal cues like hunger or needing the toilet).
• A sensory diet is a personalised, structured plan of sensory activities across the day, built from sensory “meals” and “snacks”. It should be designed by an occupational therapist, because what regulates one person can overwhelm another.
• Deep pressure through the muscles, joints and skin is one of the safest and most organising inputs for the nervous system. It is the same principle behind swaddling a newborn.
• Dysregulated behaviour is a signal that the sensory system is not coping, not naughtiness. As Bev puts it, the aim is to feed the need rather than stop it.

A Sensory Diet Across the Day

This page summarises a webinar and is not clinical advice. A sensory diet should be designed for the individual by a qualified occupational therapist.

The Eight Senses

Most of us grew up with five senses. Bev works with eight. The three extra ones are the ones that matter most when a nervous system is struggling. Proprioception is the information coming from muscles, joints and bones that tells you where your body is in space. The vestibular sense handles movement and balance. Interoception is the internal channel, the one that tells you that you are hungry, thirsty, too hot, or need the toilet. Bev describes interoception as the last sense to fine tune and the most complex, which is why it so often sits behind difficulties that look like behaviour. Sensory processing itself is a four-step loop: the body receives the stimuli, interprets it, processes it into a response, and then responds adaptively.

What a Sensory Diet Is, and Who Should Build It

A sensory diet is a personalised plan of sensory activities designed to help someone regulate and improve focus and attention. The food analogy is deliberate. It runs on a schedule inside the daily routine, with larger sensory “meals” and smaller sensory “snacks” spread through the day. Bev is direct about authorship: get your OT to do this. The plan needs to be prescriptive, with a specific activity, a specific quantity and a goal attached to each item. It needs to be personalised and modified as things change. And it needs to be age appropriate in both the developmental and the chronological sense, so that a teenager is not handed a toddler’s activity. What is regulating for one person can be under-stimulating or overwhelming for another, which is exactly why this is not a checklist to copy from the internet.

Regulation Comes Before Learning

Bev used a model from occupational therapist Greg Santucci that puts the sequence plainly. Trust and safety come first. If someone does not feel safe, they cannot be regulated. If they are not regulated, they cannot participate, and skill building or learning becomes very difficult. When a person is not regulated they move into hyperarousal and the fight, flight or freeze response takes over. The practical shift Bev asks families to make is to stop trying to switch off the movement a child is seeking, and instead feed the need by providing that same input in a more structured, appropriate way. She was equally clear that the aim is not simply more movement. It is the right movement, at the right time, for the right sensory need. A regulated nervous system supports attention and participation. An exhausted one does not.

Deep Pressure and Heavy Work

Deep pressure through the muscles, joints and skin is described as among the safest and most effective organising inputs available. Practical options include swaddling or wrapping in blankets, pillows of different sizes and textures to nestle into, and weighted items such as blankets, vests, wrist or ankle cuffs, lap animals and backpacks. Pressure garments are another route, as are compression sheets, body socks, and being wedged into a tight space with pillows. A therapy ball can be rolled over the body in games Bev calls the steamroller, or making a pizza or a burrito. Heavy work is the active version of the same principle: pushing, pulling, lifting and carrying. Vacuuming, sweeping, carrying the shopping, pushing a trolley, stacking chairs, scrubbing tables, wall push-ups and sandpit play all qualify, which means a lot of it is already available inside ordinary household routine.

Sensory Snacks, Breathing and Calm Spaces

Between the larger activities sit the snacks. Fidget tools, resistance bands, theraputty, a wobble cushion or a swivel chair all let someone stay regulated while seated, and Bev makes the point that a child fidgeting at a desk is not failing to listen, they are doing what keeps them able to listen. Vibration gives moving rather than static pressure, through electric toothbrushes, vibrating pillows, massagers, or humming and kazoos. Oral input covers crunchy foods, thick straws, chewing gum and blowing bubbles, the last of which doubles as breathing work. For breathing itself Bev uses visual cards: tracing the fingers of one hand, or following the outline of a star, hexagon or figure of eight. Rhythmic music, metronome beats and familiar smells all help too, and what counts as calming is individual. One of her clients, a man in his forties, finds heavy rock music regulating.

Practical Tips from Bev

• Have an occupational therapist design the sensory diet rather than assembling one yourself, and make each item prescriptive with a specific activity, dose and goal.
• Build calming input into bedtime preparation, because many people cannot bring themselves down from a high energy state to a sleep ready state without help.
• Pack an emergency backpack of familiar sensory tools for use out in the community. The sensory diet is the proactive plan; the backpack is the reactive one.
• Set up a withdrawal area that is quiet, dark and easily accessible, filled with individualised calming items. Frame it as a special place to feel better, never as punishment, and practise using it daily so it is familiar before it is needed.
• Watch for the signs it is working: better focus afterwards, a calmer body, slower breathing, improved participation, less impulsive behaviour and easier transitions.
• Keep going once it works. Bev notes that families often stop when things improve, and then see a decline.
• Trial equipment through a therapist before buying. Several therapists hold samples, including pressure garments, so you can test the fit and the effect first.

About Bev Kadish

Bev Kadish is an occupational therapist and the founder of Write Start OT, a paediatric occupational therapy practice in Melbourne. She has worked across special schools, community health centres, hospitals and private practice, and is part of the Fragile X Alliance Clinic multidisciplinary team. Bev holds a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy with postgraduate training in sensory integration and neurodevelopmental therapy, and has a particular interest in sensory processing disorders, Fragile X syndrome, autism spectrum disorders and school readiness. The session was hosted by Liz Jewell, Family Support Counsellor with Fragile X Association Australia.

Resources Mentioned

• Dr Jean Ayres, sensory integration theory
• The Model of Child Engagement, Greg Santucci
• Wilbarger Protocol, or Therapressure Technique, taught by a qualified occupational therapist
• Hippotherapy, therapeutic horse riding
• Jettproof pressure garments
• OT Warehouse
• The Therapy Store
• Sister Sensory
• Sensory Tools
• The Sensory Poodle
• Sensory Street
• Special Needs Resources

Fragile X Association of Australia’s webinars are produced with support from Alba Prime and are available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.