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May 15, 2025 22 mins

In this episode, we explore the concept of Sensory Emotional Engagement and its role in personality development. Our research team is examining how Sensory Emotional Engagement bridges gaps between sensory integration, mental health, and early relational health. The central idea is that personality forms through repeated patterns of behavior in response to sensory and social stimuli. The way we take in sensations and move our body impacts the way we feel. The way we sense, move, and feel impacts the way we act and interact within environments and with others. The way we act and interact becomes our personality style.


In this episode, you'll discover:

  • An understanding of how sensations and movement patterns relate to how our children are feeling and acting helps us understand the body-based contribution to their personality style—or their Sensory–Emotional Personality

  • How this understanding helps us respond to them in ways that help us develop better relational patterns with them, and better support their participation and engagement socially and physically

  • The impact of caregiver responses on the meaning that our children place on sensations and movements and how this further impacts their social and emotional responses 

  • How sensory systems themselves are related to specific emotional responses 

  • How different postures and movement are related to specific emotional and social responses

  • How we sense, move, and feel, and how it impacts the way we act and interact - our personality - within environments and with others


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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesensoryemotional_ot/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greatkidsplace/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreatKidsPlace/


Want more resources? Please visit our blog: https://greatkidsplace.com/category/blog/

and https://sensoryemotional.org/

 

About

Michele Parkins MS, OTR/L IMH-E®

Founder & Director, Great Kids Place 

Founder, Sensory Emotional Engagement Model™

Michele is an Occupational Therapist endorsed as an Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Specialist. She specializes in working with children and families with Sensory Processing and Integration Disorders and challenges in social-emotional development. She is also a parent of two sensory kids. She works and lives sensational kids! Michele is a fellow of Dr. Lucy Jane Miller, OTR.

 

Michele is passionate about working with families and other therapists and continues to do so as a clinician and educator. She educates therapists from all over the country and world and continues to provide consultation to schools on treatment for sensory processing disorder. Michele has co-authored a chapter in the 3rd edition of Sensory Integration: Theory and Practice, the textbook for sensory evaluation and treatment, alongside world-renowned pioneers in the field, and is currently writing a parenting book and children’s books.  She hopes to help everyone - children and adults- understand their Sensory Emotional Personality™ style and ways to find strength and joy within them. 

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