For prescribers and other professionals
Sensory Integration (SI)
In 1968, Dr. A. Jean Ayres started calling her theory Sensory Integration (SI). The theory relates to how we constantly receive information from our surrounding via receptors, which take information from our senses and send them to the brain. Receptors are essentially messengers. The information from the senses is interpreted, processed and organised in the brain, through connections between nerve cells. You could say that the messengers gather and talk to each other. The information comes from our well-known senses: smell, taste, sight and hearing, but also from three more fundamental but less well-known senses: tactile, proprioceptive and vestibular senses.
The interpretation of sensory impressions is different in each individual. Some may experience sensory impressions very strongly, and may for instance be sensitive to sound, hearing sounds that others can’t. Some may experience sensory impressions weakly, and might for example go outside with just a T-shirt in the winter and not feel the cold.
Most people have a filter which enables them to shut out sensory impressions that do not provide essential information. For instance, they can block out background noise. Some people don’t have this filter, but take in all sensory impressions all the time. People who receive and process all sensory impressions get more tired than those who can shut them out.
Those who have a functioning system tend not to think about it, but for those who haven’t it can be a serious problem. They spend a lot of unnecessary energy constantly requesting information from the body: constantly moving (activating the vestibular senses), chewing and grinding teeth (proprioceptive senses) and so on.
Our weighted products compensate and assist this system with feedback from the various fundamental senses. The user therefore avoids having to constantly ask for information from the senses, thus saving energy which can instead be used to focus on a task, for example.
