This study examined the impact of an educator professional development training on sensory integration and processing. The researchers had three specific research questions: 

1. What is the influence of professional development to enhance educators’ knowledge of sensory integration and processing? 
2. What is the influence of professional development to enhance educators’ perceptions of their abilities to problem solve classroom management strategies? 
3. What are educator perceptions of supports and barriers in their school and district to providing students with needed supports?

Methods

The team used a mixed methods design using three data collection tools: field notes taken by the researcher, course reflections completed by the educators at the end of the course, and retrospective survey containing open-ended and Likert scaled questions. 

Participation was open to educators working in schools in a Midwestern state in the United States. Fifteen educators attended the full training, and 11 completed informed consent to become research participants. 

Participants attended two days of training delivered over three weeks by an occupational therapist. The content covered the eight sensory systems, how sensory differences impact classroom participation, and how to identify support strategies using Lucy Miller’s A SECRET framework. A SECRET stands for Attention, Sensation, Emotional Regulation, Culture, Relationship, Environment, and Task—a framework with a long history of clinical use for helping parents of children with sensory differences create supportive activities. If you’re not familiar with it, it is outlined comprehensively in Lucy Miller’s book No longer a SECRET (available on Amazon in your country). There’s also a parent workshop here which explores the basics.

The Results

Qualitative Findings: 

Theme 1 – Understanding Sensory Needs which included educators developing a changed understanding not only of their students’ sensory needs but also their own. One substitute teacher reported the course “provided me with an additional piece of the puzzle” whilst a high school educator reflected, “as I read through my notes, I continue to be amazed at how much sensory processing has to do with the development of children.”

Within this theme, educators explored their own sensory preferences and realised how these influenced classroom choices. One teacher noted, “I have looked at myself and my students in a new way. I have been able to recognise how the things that I dislike affect how I react to situations.” 

Theme 2 – Strategies to Use in the Classroom

The second theme reflected educators’ increased number of available strategies and deeper understanding of why and how to use tools. Many reported they’d been told to implement sensory strategies previously but weren’t sure why, which led to misuse or abandonment. 

Theme 3 – Supports and Barriers

The third theme related to supports and barriers for implementing sensory strategies. Educators identified the access they had to occupational therapists as existing support they may not have previously engaged with. They also noted that much of the equipment suggested in the training was already available in their school.

Barriers included cost and time concerns related to allowing all staff to attend the training. And the costs associated with purchasing equipment, some educators had purchased tools for their own classrooms, but noted that doing this school-wide would be costly. 

Quantitative Findings

The survey results from 11 participants demonstrated statistically significant improvements across all measured areas. Educators showed significant gains in understanding how sensory integration and processing impacts classroom behaviours and learning, with moderate to large effect sizes ranging from 0.724 to 0.877. The greatest improvement was in educators’ perception of their ability to support student needs. It’s important to remember that this was a very small sample size and the retrospective survey design asked participants to recall their knowledge before training after completing the training, which introduces potential recall bias.  

Practical Takeaways

For school-based occupational therapists, this study provides some evidence that there is the value of providing professional development to educators on sensory processing. The educators liked the two full days format with a gap between sessions as this allowed them to try strategies and return with questions, this is useful to consider when planning professional development for educators. 

The A SECRET framework provided educators with a structured problem-solving tool which gave them specific areas to consider when analysing sensory needs and they could apply the framework across different situations. The finding that educators valued understanding their own sensory preferences as it helped them to fully appreciate students’ needs is helpful, and building this self-awareness into training delivered to educators could enhance their ability to recognise why they connect with different students and set up their classrooms in particular ways.

The study also highlights the importance of your role in ongoing collaboration. Educators reported increased use of their occupational therapist following the training, suggesting that professional development can strengthen interprofessional working 

We do need to observe some caution with these results though as the study didn’t include any objective measures of student outcomes or classroom observations, and it relied entirely on educator self-report and a longer follow-up period would be valuable to understand whether the initial enthusiasm and reported knowledge gains translate into sustained changes in classroom practice.

This study links quite well to the first one as it is also exploring the impact of teacher workshops and consultation with occupational therapists. It frames the support within the multi-tiered system of support framework, which is often called Response to Intervention in the USA. This framework breaks out levels of support into three tiers, level 1 or universal support which should be available to all students, Level 2 or targeted support which is available to some students and might be delivered as a group and Level 3 or specialist which is typically viewed as 1:1 direct support. 

This study had three specific research questions: 

1. First, does teacher participation in a weekly manualised RtI Tier 1 and Tier 2 occupational therapy intervention improve teachers’ utilisation of strategies to support students’ sensory processing? 
2. Second, does a teacher workshop on sensory processing plus one occupational therapy consultation each trimester improve teachers’ utilisation of strategies? 
3. And third, does a teacher workshop alone improve teachers’ utilisation of strategies to support students’ self-regulation and sensory processing?

Methods

The team used a pre-posttest quasi-experimental cohort study design with mixed methods, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Quasi-experimental means that the research either lacks a control group or participants are not assigned to groups at random. Three kindergarten classrooms were recruited from two elementary schools in San Jose, California, using convenience sampling. For those not in the USA, children are typically five when they enter kindergarten. The classrooms received different levels of intervention. 

Support received

1. Classroom 1 (11 children): weekly one-hour interventions provided by university OT graduate students, consisting of Tier 1 (classroom wide, 20 students in the classroom) for one-hour and Tier 2 (small group, 4 students, randomly assigned, in each group) interventions over 10 weeks. The intervention incorporated aspects of the Zones of Regulation curriculum and self-regulation strategies, including education on calming corners, understanding feelings and internal states, and how to utilise sensory tools.
2. Classroom 2 (15 children): the teacher attended a one-hour workshop on understanding behaviours and sensory processing strategies, plus bi-weekly email or in-person occupational therapy consultations. 
3. Classroom 3 (18 children): the teacher only attended the one-hour workshop. The workshops provided teachers with training and resources to implement sensory-based interventions in their classrooms.

Data were collected at the beginning of the intervention in January and again after 10 weeks. There’s quite a few data collection methods, but I will try to make them clear. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire as a screening tool. The sensory processing measure was then completed for students who scored above average on the SDQ. This was completed both before and after the intervention in addition to a research team designed teacher questionnaire which explored Understanding and Implementation of Sensory Processing and a Zones of Regulation Staff Implementation survey. The Zones of Regulation Skills Inventory was completed by the teacher of Group 1 for all students at pre and posttest.  

The Results

Teacher Questionnaires (n=3)

Teachers’ self-reported understanding and implementation of sensory processing strategies showed some changes. The teacher in classroom one reported high knowledge and use of strategies before the intervention began, with their average scores being 4 or 5 out of 5, this teacher had prior sensory processing professional development in graduate school which helps to explain their scores. Three of their questions increased to 5 out of 5 after the intervention. The teachers in classroom two and three had low scores for knowledge, understanding use of sensory strategies before the training and their scores either increased or stayed the same following the training. All three teachers reported using Zones of Regulation concepts and strategies more regularly after the intervention. 

Qualitative Findings from Teacher Interviews

Five main themes emerged from teacher interviews. We need to remember this data is from three teachers so it is a very small sample size. First teachers reported very limited prior professional development on sensory needs and that they had challenges understanding which strategies to use and when. For example, one teacher stated they had difficulty “recognising what tools are, in what situations.”

Second, teachers shared how they implemented sensory tools and Zones of Regulation concepts and noted these resulted in positive impacts on classroom dynamics. One teacher observed that previous brain breaks involving dancing and music didn’t work with their current group, demonstrating increased awareness of individual student needs.

Third, teachers expressed strong appreciation for occupational therapy support. Teachers valued being able to “pick each other’s brains and discuss in real time” and found it easier to communicate with parents when information came from “an actual trained professional.”

Fourth, parent and administration or senior leadership support emerged as important factors. Teachers noted that administrative or senior leader support and budget availability facilitated implementation.

Finally, teachers reported perspective changes. One teacher reflected, “I do think it’s made me a better teacher” and “Now I think my toolbox has a lot more in it for recognising things.” Another noted increased student study team meetings, demonstrating more conversations around student needs.

SDQ and SPM-2 Correlation

Only the SPM was completed after the intervention and there was no significant difference in the students’ SMP scores before and after the intervention. 

Practical Takeaways

Teachers clearly valued the occupational therapy input, felt more equipped to support their students, and reported seeing positive changes in classroom dynamics even when standardised measures didn’t reflect this. 

Whilst the study attempted to measure student outcomes, they only did this for students flagged as having difficulties on the SDQ on pre-test, and their chosen outcome measure the SPM-2, did not show any change. I think it would have been interesting if the research team had also completed the SDQ in the post test as this has more questions on engagement and social behaviour. 

The team suggested that strong correlation between the SDQ and SPM-2 could make it a useful screening tool in practice. The SDQ is free, quick to administer, and accessible to teachers, and could help to identify which students might benefit from more comprehensive sensory processing assessment. They suggested this could help with referral processes prioritisation of caseload management, however we need to be mindful that the tool doesn’t specifically consider occupation or participation and the questions are very behaviour focused so it is unlikely it could be the only screening tool we use.

This paper has explored the development of the guidelines for using ASI in schools, but . it does not contain the guidelines themselves, rather it presents the background work that has gone into the guidelines. The authors have presented on the paper in these trainings

Research & guidelines for ASI in schools

Facilitators and barriers for ASI in schools