Terminology

What does sensory processing mean?

Sensory Integration theory has been around for many years and there are lots of different terms and definitions.  Within this website, when we use the term Sensory Processing, we are talking about the way a person’s central nervous system picks up information from our different sensory systems and then sends it to the brain, where the information is processed and used.

When an individual finds this harder, we refer to this as Sensory Processing Difficulties.
Other terms that are used are Sensory Integration (SI), Sensory Integration Difficulty and Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). When we talk about the formal intervention approach which was designed and pioneered by Dr Jean Ayres, we will use the term Ayres Sensory Integration (ASI).