ONLINE COURSE: Interoception in Action | Self-Regulation, Sensory Processing & Behavior in Children

Interoception is often described as the awareness of internal body signals, but in clinical practice it is much more than simply “noticing the body.” It is the process through which the nervous system detects, interprets, predicts, and responds to signals such as hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain, temperature, breathing, heart rate, bladder and bowel needs, nausea, arousal, and internal discomfort.

When children struggle with interoception, their behavior can appear sudden, confusing, oppositional, avoidant, or emotionally intense. A child may seem to “explode out of nowhere,” refuse transitions, argue, withdraw, mask distress, seek control, struggle with toileting, avoid food, or become overwhelmed long before they can explain what is happening inside their body.

This course helps professionals look beyond surface behavior and ask a deeper clinical question: What is the child’s body trying to communicate?

Across three sessions, participants explore the role of interoception in self-regulation, emotional awareness, sensory processing, attention, learning readiness, social participation, and sense of self. The course connects interoception with proprioception, vestibular input, co-regulation, emotional granularity, alexithymia, anxiety, trauma, autism, ADHD, selective feeding, toileting challenges, and felt safety.

A central theme of the training is “the body before behavior.” Before children can use cognitive strategies, reflect on emotions, or make adaptive choices, their nervous system must first experience enough safety, predictability, regulation, and body-based organization. For this reason, the course highlights both bottom-up and top-down intervention approaches.

Participants will learn how to use movement, heavy work, rhythm, breathing, body mapping, sensation scales, visual supports, predictable routines, co-regulation, therapeutic pacing, and reflective language to help children build trust in their body signals. The goal is not simply to make children “calm,” but to help them understand their internal experiences, tolerate discomfort, recover from activation, and develop greater self-agency.

With practical examples, clinical case studies, and intervention ideas that can be applied in therapy, school, and home-based contexts, this course offers a neurophysiologically informed framework for supporting children who struggle with regulation, emotional expression, sensory processing, and behavior.