Ep. 62: Sensory Tips for In Home Therapists
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What are the core benefits of using sensory strategies in in‑home therapy?
What's up everyone and welcome to Making the Shift for Autistic Kids.
We're an SLP couple from California with four boys. And we're here every week to bring you neuroaffirming tips, tricks, and tools. Are you ready to make the shift? Let's do this!
Hello, hello. Today we are going to be talking all about how to successfully implement a sensory-based approach in the home setting. And we will touch on a little bit of virtual therapy too. But I thought that there was no better person to invite to have this conversation with me than the one, the only Melanie Weber, SLP. And you probably know Melanie. She's been on our show before. She's an SLP of almost 10 years. Her primary specialties are integrating sensory with gestalt language, AAC, neurodiversity affirming therapy in general. And I also have the pleasure of working with her because she is on our inside out team. So Melanie has done a ton of in-home therapy and I cannot wait to dive into this with you.
I'm so excited. It's my passion is in-home therapy, which I feel like is not true for a lot of people.
Well, first of all, let's talk about how much you love that drive between sessions for your own regulation purposes.
It's wonderful. I did not know why I loved it so much until I learned about sensory and then I quickly realized that. fifteen minute debrief between sessions is absolutely necessary for me. Seeing more than like Four kids back to back is so hard. Like it's it's hard.
Gotta regulate. Got to. So I would love to Here First of all What? What was your therapy like or how did you feel as a therapist being an in-home therapist before you ever knew anything about sensory versus how you are now as a therapist being sensory trained going in home?
Yeah, absolutely. So I started in home therapy. the year after I finished my C F. So I had only been practicing a very short time. And I saw lots of little ones when I worked in my clinic at the hospital, but it was so different working through an early intervention agency because what I realized is I was the first provider a lot of these parents had ever met and a lot of them didn't even understand like Fully while they were there, you know, they the doctor told them they needed speech therapy or they needed an evaluation. When I worked at a hot I worked at a hospital clinic. And so like the parents are bringing their kids. So they're aware. But this in this case, usually it's the doctor pushing it. And so it's me showing up and there were a lot of kids where I was the very first provider they had ever seen.
And like quickly learned about sensory and then it's a whole new conversation is like how do I introduce OT or bring up the topic of OT or even bring up, you know, What is up? We don't have to, it's not a bad word. But I found myself as a new therapist with all of these things I had was not prepared for in grad school. I didn't know anything about sensory in grad school. I didn't know anything about referring to occupational therapists in grad school. And it just being in the home is like a very intimate. setting. So it felt very um Uh Sensitive. I don't know. It and it was a lot being a new therapist.
How did Melanie’s early experiences shape her sensory‑based approach?
It was. It was very, very overwhelming at first.
And what did sensory training do for your in-home sections?
Oh my gosh. It honestly gave me so much confidence because when you're Going in home, the parents are sitting right there, you know, everyone's watching you. You're not always in control of the environment. You know, you only have what you bring in and During the time I was practicing there was a really big push. to go bagless and Um, at first I was like, absolutely not. You can clutch, you can take my giant bag of toys from my like cold hands. But the more I practiced and the more I learned about sensory, the more I realized it wasn't sustainable for the parents for me to come in with all of these toys and like play with a toy and then leave when I don't teach them the why behind what I'm doing. And learning about sensory helped me learn even more and and tell the parents even more like here's why.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the core benefits of using sensory strategies in in‑home therapy?
0:08–3:54
2
How did Melanie’s early experiences shape her sensory‑based approach?
3:54–7:26
3
Why is it important for therapists to explain the ‘why’ behind sensory activities to parents?
7:26–11:23
4
What are practical ways to use everyday items for sensory input when equipment is unavailable?
11:23–14:47
5
How can therapists effectively coach parents during in‑home sessions?
14:47–18:59
6
What strategies help therapists stay flexible when a session plan goes off track?
18:59–22:07
7
How does virtual parent coaching compare to in‑person home visits?
22:07–25:39
8
What key mindset shifts improve therapist confidence and connection with families?
25:39–28:56
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
Ep. 125 How to Run Successful Social Groups
Ep. 124 Building Rapport Isn’t Enough...How Therapists Become Part of the Intervention
Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)