Ayres Sensory Integration®

Target Audience: This lesson is for: OT/COTA, SLP and PT are welcome to take the course and will receive a certificate of completion. 

Continuing Education credits: 2.0 contact hours

All disciplines will receive a certificate of completion.  

OT/OTA: You will receive a certificate of course completion with total CE contact hours. M HEALTH Fairview is no longer an approved provider through AOTA and has never been for distance learning. You may still submit the hours towards your licensure and receive a certificate of completion with all information provided to submit.  For additional information about CE requirements for license, please see MN Statute 148.6443: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/148.6443MN statutes 143.6443, subdivision SUBD.2 “Standards for determining the qualified education activities” will continue to be utilized in determining appropriate OT related CE courses.

Disclaimer:

• Information was taken from materials provided in the USC Sensory Integration Certificate Program from University of Southern California.
• This is meant to be an overview for occupational therapists.
• Some images were taken from the course materials provided but is not to be printed or replicated without permission from the original source.

Instructor:

Megan Wetterling, OTR/L, is a Clinical Specialist 1 in Sensory Integration. She received her Master of Arts in Occupational Therapy from St. Catherine University in 2015. She has worked at an outpatient clinic specializing in autism and has been with M Health Fairview for the last 3 years. She completed the USC Chan Sensory Integration Continuing Education (CE) Certificate Program in Summer 2022 from the University of Southern California. She is also trained in SOS, therapeutic listening, and astronaut training. Megan is involved in system wide initiates around the Safe and Sound protocol and is a Certified Safe and Sound provider. She has been working with patients with sensory processing deficits for the last 7 years.

Course Description: This course is a 2.5-hour introductory course on Ayres Sensory Integration® including patterns of dysfunction, evaluation, and treatment. Ayres Sensory Integration® was developed by Jean Ayres, an occupational therapist and psychologist in the 1970’s. It is a bottom up, child led and play based approach that focuses on our tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular systems, and how these systems influence our regulation of arousal, observable behaviors, postural stability, bilateral coordination, and oculomotor skills. There is a lot of misinformation regarding sensory processing differences and sensory integration treatment, and this course will provide foundational knowledge needed for evaluation and treatment. It will also include an overview of other approaches used to treat sensory integration dysfunction and current research.

Objectives

• Describe the importance of the vestibular, proprioception, and tactile systems and the different patterns of sensory integration dysfunction within these systems
• Recognize the difference between Ayres Sensory Integration® and other sensory processing treatment approaches
• Evaluate and identify patterns of sensory integration dysfunction in a pediatric population
• Plan effective treatment interventions for patients with sensory integration dysfunction

Agenda:

Overview of Sensory Integration

• Common terms used in Sensory Integration
• Patterns of dysfunction
• Somatosensory System
• Vestibular System
• Praxis

Evaluation

• Assessment of tactile functions
• Assessment of proprioceptive functions
• Assessment of vestibular functions