sensory change podcasts supporting and helping families

Latest Episode

BrainTap With Dr Patrick Porter

Dr Patrick Porter is a brain researcher and the inventor of BrainTap. We talk about sleep, relaxation and light therapy and how can our brain recharge itself by getting enough deep delta sleep. What are the different brain waves and how can we tune ourselves to relax and reduce stress and promote relaxation.

Dr Patrick kindly offers 15 days free trial following the link below: https://tinyurl.com/specialbraintap

** Also if you are a parent of a child on the spectrum please contact [email protected] to get the ‘Autism Package’ for free. **

In this chat, I talk to Mona Delahooke about the Polyvagal theory and ways to help children when they shut down or when they are in a fight or flight state. I speak to Dr Mona about her book “Beyond Behaviors” which shifted the way I looked at parenting looking at behaviours as the tip of the iceberg and focusing on developing meaningful relationships. As parents, we need to pay attention to the important signals that we should address by seeking to understand a child’s differences in the context of relational safety. We also speak about DIR FloorTime and bottom-up and top-down approaches and why there is no such thing as “Good” or Bad” behaviour. Dr Delahooke is a member of the American Psychological Association and holds the highest level of endorsement in the field of infant and toddler mental health in California, as a Reflective Practice Mentor (RPM). She is a frequent speaker, trainer, and consultant to parents, organizations, schools, and public agencies. Dr Delahooke has dedicated her career to promoting compassionate, relationship-based, neurodevelopmental interventions for children with developmental, behavioural, emotional, and learning differences.

Kelly Mahler has been an occupational therapist for 18 years, serving school-aged children and adults. Kelly is an international speaker and presents frequently on topics related to sensory integration and interception in particular. In this chat we speak about ways to help kids on the spectrum to understand the signs we get from our body and how to help them thrive.

In this chat, I speak to Alex about sensory kids and swings, the input swings and other ways to help children on the autistic spectrum.

Alex Lopiccolo known by the name The King of Swings is an OT specializing in designing sensory rooms and swings for private use. He is running Sensorimotor Workshop as an instructor and designs Home/Therapy Clinic Sensory Gym equipment. Alex Lopiccolo’s sensory gyms come in all shapes and sizes and help kids who benefit from therapeutic movement. and above all, they’re fun! I speak to Alex about sensory children and ideas to add a swing on a budget and even inside a plaster wall built house. Alex shares tips about bedtime and the sensory input we get from swings equipment. Lopiccolo designs and builds home sensory gyms for kids who need therapeutic movement. His own house, naturally, has a huge gym setup. The kids both have swings in their rooms. Their solarium, dubbed the Sensorimotor Exploration Lab, is the world’s most amazing playroom, complete with a zipline, Lycra swings and lots of padded shapes for climbing and cushioned landings. “I live and breathe sensory therapy. Lopiccolo owns Sensory Digest and also works part-time as an occupational therapy assistant at a pediatric clinic. He started designing sensory gyms to fill a need he saw. A home sensory gym might take the form of a bedroom Lycra maze to help kids relax and calm down — the stretchy fabric pulls you into a fetal position. Sensory gyms can help hypermobile kids and those with low muscle tone improve joint stability and posture control. another benefit is that Sensory gyms can help kids improve joint stability and posture control. Currently, he is the only one who does it in the world,” Lopiccolo says. “I enjoy it, watching kids use it and have fun with it and making it therapeutic.”

In this video, I talk to Dr Sharik Peck about his invention and how to use the tuner to tune your body’s energies to promote relaxation calm and healing. There are many ways to promote emotional regulation and methods to help integrate primitive reflexes faster using the Rezzimax Tuner Pro as it trains the vagus nerve to calm down our nervous system. This tool is being used as a therapeutic device by many clinicians around the world for a good reason and its available at a special 20% discount price :

www.rezimax.com/discount/sensorychange (approx 140$ of value)

n this chat I talk to Dr Omer Hirsh about his experience as a functional neurologist who helps children and adults on the autistic spectrum. Dr Hirsh translated Robert Melillo’s book ‘Disconnected Kids’ into Hebrew. we talk about the connection between low muscle tone and gut issues and behaviour, the role of the vagus nerve in facilitating emotional regulation and what makes primitive reflexes a barrier to normal development when they fail to integrate naturally. Dr Omer can explain complex concepts simply and visually which makes perfect sense.

n this chat I speak to Lauren Butcher about Mini-Mindfuls course and the concept of mindfulness and meditation for children, the benefits and the way she incorporates learning through play.

We also talk about stress relief for children and adults and the benefits we can expect from her course and from mindfulness in general.

Lauren found a way to reconnect to her child through mindfulness and play focusing on cognitive development and emotional regulation. she created a 12-Week Home Series all around charming Mindful Mates to help other parents to reconnect to their children through mindfulness and play. Learn more about Lauren and her Mini-Minidfuls program

In this chat I talk to Sheila Frick the founder of Vital Links about sensory kids and auditory therapeutic listening, a program I attended more than 8 years ago which impacted my son’s ability to focus, improved his speech and his motor skills, coordination and communication.

Sheila has well over 40 years of clinical experience, having worked in psychiatry, rehabilitation, and home health before specialising in paediatrics. Sheila expertise includes sensory processing dysfunction, sensory integration, and auditory interventions.

Sheila has explored the links between Sensory Integration and developmental movement patterns through auditory therapy, she keeps on training clinicians in her methods. Her aim is to make these therapies accessible to all parents.

In this fascinating chat, I talk to Afshan about emotions and how to help our children express a wider range of emotions that will help them through life.

We talk about the effect of breathing and relaxation techniques, ‘Emotional Fitness’ and why is it important to implement it in day to day life and the relationship between emotions and behaviour.

Afshan has become a sought-after expert of emotional and “whole life” wellness for families and has been featured on multiple parenting shows, it was a pleasure talking to her.

In this interesting and very informative chat, I talk to Dr Carla Adams about vision therapy and the holistic approach behind it as many parents are not aware of the difference between sight and vision. When your child is checked for sight and – there is no guarantee that their vision is impaired. Behavioural and developmental optometrist Carla Adams left retail optometry to open her practice and create an “alternative vision clinic.” Dr Adams says she felt she could “do more to help patients” through neuro-visual rehabilitation and pediatric vision therapy rather than simply 20/20 eye testing. “Eighty per cent of patients coming through retail optometric outlets require only primary care optometry,” Dr Adams says. “I wanted to help patients with special needs as well – people for whom primary care optometry is insufficient.” But, after years in her practice, Dr Adams realized that, perhaps, therapy alone might not always be the most direct – and most rapid – approach to getting patients to their goals. “Therapy relies on compliance, and not all patients are diligent in adhering to prescribed therapy regimens,” she says. Dr Adams is training in applying the advanced neuro-optometric rehabilitation techniques practised by the Mind-Eye team

Jackie de Vries is a certified neurotherapist and a licensed CMT. She specializes in understanding the whole picture for each client and applying the most advantageous approaches for their situation. Jackie draws on her extensive experience with functional medicine, energy therapies, neurotherapy, sound therapy and vibroacoustic therapy to help each client maximize their potential. Our chat focused on her experience with children on the autistic spectrum and neurofeedback treatment, what is it and how is it done using different modalities combining with other therapies at the same time. Neurofeedback saved her life and as a result Jackie changed her focus to help children and adults in this fascinating field. The brain is the most complex organ and changes are possible as for the plasticity of the brain and the therapies used.

Listen to this eye-opening chat with Dr Kyle Daigle in which we discuss the importance of working on primitive reflexes and helping children using multi-sensory holistic approach. Kyle is a chiropractor who utilizes a special treatment that combines multiple fields of science – from Chiropractic, Low Powered Lasers, Vibration Therapy, Physiotherapy, Applied Kinesiology, and Clinical Nutrition. His primary focus is to help his patients regain a sense of Neurological balance by making sure your muscles, joints, and spine are able to send signals throughout the spinal cord without “interference”. The human brain is the most powerful organ we have in our body and it’s extremely sensitive to inflammation, injuries, nutritional deficiencies, as well as muscle imbalances. Dr Daigle believes that if we can give the body its proper nutrients, the body will start to heal itself. Dr Daigle has worked with patients with numerous conditions such as traumatic Brain Injuries and children on the autistic spectrum.

Debbie Reber is a bestselling author and speaker who has spent the past fifteen years writing inspiring books for women and teens. She launched TiLT Parenting – a website, podcast, and social media community, where she is building a community of supportive parents of neurodiverse children.

In this interesting chat, I speak to Debbie about her journey and the challenges she faced raising her child being a home school mom, but we also talk about the way we as parents deal with our kids and help them find their path in life. There isn’t a normal path to follow because we are all different.

Avital is a mindful parenting coach helping parents across the globe to be the loving parents they most want to be. Her work has been published in Huff Post and is endorsed and recommended by the leaders in the Parenting space, Dr Shefali Tsabary and Dr Laura Markham.

Avital has helped thousands of parents through her courses memberships and hundreds of thousands through her blog. In this chat I learned about Avital’s journey how did she start coaching parents and why.

I was intreated by her peaceful parenting approach and how to implement it daily. we also touch on technology and rewards systems besides challenges like tantrums and encouraging independence among young children

Gaynor is an experienced teacher, who has always had a passion for bringing out the best in her students. Now, she combines her years of teaching experience with RMT, to investigate the possible roots of difficulties and work with them from the foundation, upwards.

We talk about awareness of the primitive reflexes role in normal development and the signs you should look for as a parent for normal developmental delays.

Having personally encountered and experienced the profound effectiveness of RMT for her son, Gaynor has trained in RMT. As a result, she has new knowledge, understanding and tools to help students on the road to realising their true capabilities. Working on our natural building blocks just makes complete sense, and has answered many questions she had as an educational practitioner.
She is delighted to be able to offer RMT to clients and continue to support them in attaining their personal goals

Dr Laura Markham is the founding editor of AhaParenting.com she also serves as a parenting expert for many websites, makes frequent TV and radio appearances and has been interviewed for thousands of articles by publications as diverse as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Real Simple, Newsday, Men’s Health, Redbook and Parents Magazine. Over 140,000 parents subscribe to her weekly email.

Dr Laura Markham’s relationship-based parenting model, which she calls Peaceful Parenting, has helped thousands of families across the U.S. and Canada find compassionate, common-sense solutions to everything from separation anxiety and sleep problems.

Dr Markham’s approach syncs very well with mine. In this talk, we discuss ways to help parents focus on connecting with their children and bonding joyfully.

Penny is a parenting & ADHD Trainer she trains and coaches parents raising kids with ADHD and/or autism. She’s the parent of a son with both ADHD and autism, and the award-winning author of four books on parenting ADHD: Boy Without Instructions, What to Expect When Parenting Children with ADHD, The Insider’s Guide to ADHD, and The Hidden Layers of ADHD.

In this fascinating chat, we discuss the challenges and ways Penny helps fellow parents with kids on the autistic spectrum and how mindset is the most important change parents should adopt.

Penny is the current editor of ParentingADHDandAutism.com, Founder and Instructor for The Parenting ADHD & Autism Academy, facilitator of the Happy Mama Retreat and the Purposeful Parenting Bootcamp, and a frequent contributor on parenting and children with ADHD for ADDitude Magazine and other parenting and special needs publications.

Daniel Ansari is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, where he heads the Numerical Cognition Laboratory. Ansari and his team explore the developmental trajectory underlying both the typical and atypical development of numerical and mathematical skills, using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods.

It is highly important that children will develop numerical and mathematical skills for their later success in school and university. On our call we discuss ways to help children who face challenges learning and understanding math.

Overall this is a fascinating call with Prof. Daniel make sure to listen.

In this fascinating chat with Professor Ockelford we talk about the ways to help children on the autistic spectrum through music. While attending the Royal Academy of Music in London, Adam started working with children with special needs – a number of whom, he noticed, had special musical abilities too. He was intrigued by just how musical many of them seemed to be. Trying to understand how these young people could ‘hear’ and understand music so effectively led him to develop a theory of how music makes sense – not just to them, but to all of us – a theory for which he was awarded a PhD by London University.

This is fascinating talk with Dr. Maya about children’s health and nutrition following the 3 foundations: -Getting exposed to germs and microbes -Eating fresh food from healthy soil -Getting outdoors into nature Dr. Maya believes that children’s bodies naturally have the capacity to be healthy and heal when they have the tools to do so. Her plan starts with the soil, using fresh foods and nature to heal children from the inside out and the outside in. Revealing the profound connections between food, nature, and children’s health. Dr. Maya explains how food is constantly changing kids’ bodies, brains, and even genes—for better or for worse. She also shares tips to parents to transform your child’s health through food and ensure the long-term wellbeing of your kids and the entire family.

In this fascinating episode Steve talks about the problems for learners who are dyscalculic and/or who have trouble in learning mathematics is retaining facts and procedures in long term memory and the way to address these problems by developing an understanding of those maths facts and procedures. DYSCALCULIA is a specific learning difficulty with mathematics, primarily arithmetic. It’s a condition that affects the ability to acquire mathematical skills. Dyscalculic learners may have a difficulty understanding simple number concepts, lack an intuitive grasp of numbers, and have problems learning number facts and procedures Even if they produce a correct answer or use a correct method, they may do so mechanically and without confidence.’ Research into dyscalculia has lagged far behind research into dyslexia, but this is beginning to even out. The new powerful neurological tools are shedding new light on this difficulty. Despite this, our understanding of dyscalculia lags behind our knowledge of dyslexia. However, researchers agree that there is no single profile. There are many contributing factors. It is described as a heterogeneous problem which is compounded by the constellation of demands made by maths.

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Nicole Beurkens about helping children of ADD and ADHD and others on the autistic spectrum. Parents are not aware that medication is not the only way and the long terms effect of medication. By making changes to their day to day patterns and implementing the right nutrition parents can help their children to flourish and improve symptoms and functioning for their child. discover the 5 areas you must address to consistently improve behavior for children and young adults. If you don’t resolve these root issues you will struggle to get the long-term results you and your child need.

This is an amazing chat with Debbie Olley who is a qualified Craniosacral Therapist in London. I was looking for a therapy to help my boys relax and calm down tantrum, focusing and attention as well as regulating their emotions and other behavioural challenges.I met Debbie as she has an amazing approach to people in general and kids with learning difficulties in particular. On the call we discuss what is Craniosacral Therapy and ways to help children overcome their difficulties with this gentle aproach.

In this chat with Sarah Jones from Bird, we discuss the way this wonderful charity helps children and adults to overcome a variety of brain-related issues through working on primitive reflexes. I found BIRD when all hope seems lost and I have managed to do the impossible through hard work and the support I was given by Sarah and the team at BIRD through almost 3 years of therapy. Many people with brain injury are born with the problem due to genetic reasons or complications during pregnancy and birth. Other people suffer trauma during their life from accidents, assaults and natural disorders such as strokes. BIRD help children and adults through a unique treatment that complements the more traditional methods such as medicine and adapted education. Symptoms include: StrokeAutismCerebral palsyCongenital defectsAcquired head neurodevelopmental delay DyslexiaDyspraxiaHyperactivity/attention deficit disorders behavioural/emotional disorders other non – specific learning difficulties

Do you or does someone you care about have sensory processing challenges? My chat with Lindsey is all about sensory challenges and practical solutions for overcoming sensitivities to noise, touch, movement, visuals, taste, and smell that can interfere with function at home, at school, Sensory strategies and where to get help. Lindsey Biel, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist with a private practice in NYC where she evaluates and treats children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental challenges. She is co-author of the award-winning Raising a Sensory Smart Child: The Definitive Handbook for Helping Your Child with Sensory Processing Issues,

Jenniffer tells her story and the way she discovers a new world of alternative medicine hidden from most parents.Many mainstream doctors recommended medication rather than address the underlying causes. many children are biochemically unbalanced and plagued by nutritional deficiencies. As a result of genetic mutations and food intolerances, the intestinal system becomes inflamed, causing inflammation and preventing proper metabolic and brain functioning.

This interesting chat with Cory Cohiolo about wellbeing and meditation for children, how to deal with anxious feelings and how can the change of mindset also affect the mood and the way we think. How to make the shift from a child who is not regulated and feeling upset into a positive and calm mindset.

Quantum Reflex Integration (QRI) combines the powerful effects of cold laser, sound, and reflex integration techniques. Reflex Integration revives the nervous system for quick, visible results. Individuals with conditions such as autism, ADD/ADHD, brain injuries find relief of their symptoms.

Geoff Shayler is one of the most qualified Behavioural Optometrists in Europe who combines syntonic therapy and helped many children to overcome vision difficulties through his methods.

I had the honour to talk to Susanna Zaraysky Susanna shared the amazing story of her life about her vision journey. This is a story of hope and determination to create global awareness in order to help children and adults through vision therapy

Amazing chat with Robyn who is working with young people both on and off the autism spectrum. Robyn shares her new book ‘The autism-friendly guide to periods’ – a detailed guide for young people on the subject. Robyn does an amazing job spreading the word in schools all over the world. She teaches classes learning about autism, how to live life as a young autistic adult and music workshops.