Little Life Development

25/05/2026

Big shout out to this amazing football mad, train loving, body sock and theraputty loving young person, who I've had the pleasure to work with for regular Therapy sessions for the past 18 months! 🙏 ⚽ 🧠

Jake (pseudonym) has completed
🧠 The Interoception Curriculum by Kelly Mahler and
✍️ The Speed up Programme by Lois Addy

In amongst working on goals around gross and fine motor skills, sensory processing, social-emotional development and self-advocacy.

We have played, jumped, created, explored, reflected and had lots of fun 🧸🏃 🤸 🧠 . I am super proud of you Jake! On to pastures new to secondary school soon, which will be a new challenge but I feel sure that you, and those around you, are armed with an understanding of your needs and who you are as a person, in order to get those needs met 🌟

It's not goodbye. It's see you later! ❤️



-advocacy

23/05/2026

POV: Use the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar to talk about and support interoception needs. Interoception Resource: https://www.theottoolbox.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-interoception/)

More book-related activities we do in OT sessions to support skills: https://www.theottoolbox.com/preschool-books-and-activities/

12/05/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1HetigeH5j/

“The issue wasn’t that people were imagining symptoms—it’s that science hadn’t caught up to the body.” 🎤

For a long time, many people were told their symptoms were exaggerated, psychological, or “all in their head.” But history shows us something important: our understanding of the body is always evolving.

Symptoms once labeled “psychosomatic” like stomach ulcers, chronic pain, migraine, endometriosis, POTS and IBS, are now understood as real medical diagnoses. Mechanisms once misunderstood are now studied. And experiences once questioned are now validated.

The body has always been communicating. Sometimes science needed more time to learn how to listen.

When someone shares what they are feeling in their body, curiosity and respect matter. Listening doesn’t mean we have every answer yet, it means we acknowledge that the experience is real and we work hard to support it..

Because progress in science often begins with believing the signal before we fully understand it.

Read more in our free blog:
https://www.kelly-mahler.com/resources/blog/intense-interoception-when-body-signals-feel-strong-overwhelming-or-hard-to-trust/

Image Description: Light pink tile with a border of small shapes surrounds a pink square. Blue lettering reads, ““The issue wasn’t that people were imagining symptoms—it’s that science hadn’t caught up to the body.”

12/05/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CtAG5EuCx/

“The issue wasn’t that people were imagining symptoms—it’s that science hadn’t caught up to the body.” 🎤

For a long time, many people were told their symptoms were exaggerated, psychological, or “all in their head.” But history shows us something important: our understanding of the body is always evolving.

Symptoms once labeled “psychosomatic” like stomach ulcers, chronic pain, migraine, endometriosis, POTS and IBS, are now understood as real medical diagnoses. Mechanisms once misunderstood are now studied. And experiences once questioned are now validated.

The body has always been communicating. Sometimes science needed more time to learn how to listen.

When someone shares what they are feeling in their body, curiosity and respect matter. Listening doesn’t mean we have every answer yet, it means we acknowledge that the experience is real and we work hard to support it..

Because progress in science often begins with believing the signal before we fully understand it.

Read more in our free blog:
https://www.kelly-mahler.com/resources/blog/intense-interoception-when-body-signals-feel-strong-overwhelming-or-hard-to-trust/

Image Description: Light pink tile with a border of small shapes surrounds a pink square. Blue lettering reads, ““The issue wasn’t that people were imagining symptoms—it’s that science hadn’t caught up to the body.”

08/05/2026

Taking some time out from a very busy week of sessions, meetings and reports to get stuck into this amazing new book this afternoon 💚 🧠 🤓 I consider myself to be a neuro-affirming Therapist. To be honest I always felt I was 🤷 but once you start championing truly inclusive practises as a Therapist, it can be eye opening as to how much is engrained into our training and systems which, even as OTs is still very ableist.

It's a journey that I am so here for and I will continue to grow and challenge myself to be the best Therapist I can be for my clients. ❤️

🤓🧠 I was super excited to see a whole chapter on Trauma Informed Approaches and Interoception in here which has well and truly become my bread and butter in my role over the past 6 years or so, and something I feel incredibly passionately about both professionally and personally.

If you are a fellow Therapist, how comfortable are you in reflecting on your potentially ableist approaches? It's really important we open up this dialogue to ensure we truly support occupational justice and true inclusion 🙏❤️

If you are a family receiving input from Therapies, have you noticed ableism being challenged more and have you seen a shift in recent years?

05/05/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1B1pTZfkRZ/

23/04/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ao3KzYzWE/

T is for Trauma Lives in the Body

Trauma leaves its mark not just on the brain, but on the nervous system and body sensations. Research shows that people who have experienced trauma often have differences in interoceptive processing which can influence emotion awareness, regulation capacity, and the sense of safety inside the body.

Here are a few of the most recent research studies exploring this topic:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-025-00456-w
https://pacja.org.au/article/146359-the-relationship-between-interoception-and-experiences-of-stress-trauma-and-mental-illness-a-scoping-review
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468749926000074

Read more in our free blog about interoception and trauma:
https://www.kelly-mahler.com/what-is-interoception/interoception-and-trauma/

Explore our course on interoception-based support for traumatized learners:
https://www.kelly-mahler.com/product/on-demand-course-an-interoception-based-approach-for-supporting-traumatized-learners/

Image Description: Yellow tile with dark blue writing in the middle reading, “Trauma lives in the body“. In the bottom, right corner is a graphic of an abstract drawing of flowers growing out of a person.

04/02/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1HW1F75tV2/

Safety is something a person decides internally.

It doesn’t matter if someone tells us ‘you’re safe’.
People who say that are usually referring to physical safety.
‘Physically you are safe here.’

It’s often not as simple as that.

If we don’t feel safe, we don’t feel safe, and we often don’t mean physically.

The thing we’re missing might be relational safety. It might be sensory safety. Emotional safety. Environmental safety.

We may not be able to explain what exactly is happening in our bodies, or why.
We may not have the words to wrap around our experience.
If our nervous system is heightened, for whatever reason, it can be hard to identify messages from our bodies. It can be even harder to explain that to someone who clearly is not experiencing the same thing as us.

It’s a big ask. We may not be able to.
But you might see clues in our actions, our emotions, our energy, our capacity, our behaviour.

Returning to authentic connection and coregulation in these moments is always a good move, whether you believe we have reasons to feel unsafe or not.

If we don’t feel safe, for whatever reason, it’s not up to you to decide something different.

It’s your job to recognise that our nervous system may be different to your own, and support us in our tricky times. And make sure that support is kind, curious, and empathetic, otherwise you are only pushing that sense of safety further and further away from us.

Yes?

Em 🌈

13/01/2026

Echo Carly Budd Developmental Play Academy thoughts here entirely ❤️ let me know yours! 🙏❤️

13/01/2026

When you have the best view of the water under a shelter to hide out from the heavy rain! 🌳🌧️

Today was a wet one and we got pretty soaked taking the equipment down at the end of our Eco Sensory session. The weather can impact our mood and engagement and everyone is different. The weather is a sensory experience and as we all have different sensory preferences and profiles, what is enjoyed by one person could be really uncomfortable for another. I have worked with children who love being under the rain and love the feeling it gives them, whilst others have a real aversion to it. It is also important to remember that our regulation and arousal levels fluctuate throughout the day. Just because a child LOVES standing in the rain one day, it doesn't mean they will the following day.

When I was a teenager I would love long walks in the rain.. I am sure this helped me to navigate all the changes I went through. Now? Most of the time I'd prefer to be under an umbrella and just listen to the beautiful sound! ☔😂

Who here loves walking in the rain? Or are you someone who tends to hibernate as soon as there is rain forecast? ☔🌧️🧠