Moving & Soothing: The Power of Proprioceptive & Vestibular Input
Behavior that looks wild, chaotic, or dysregulated often comes back to what the body is looking for: movement, pressure, impact, or some combination. Get a clear understanding of the vestibular and proprioceptive senses, learn why different types of input can soothe or alert, and walk away with practical strategies for using movement and pressure as regulation tools at home, in the classroom, and in therapy.
Kelsie Mick Olds, MOT OTR/LEnrollment Options
Professional Track
Provides a certificate of completion for 1.5 continuing education contact hours. Designed for social workers, educators, and early childhood educators looking to earn CE credit for professional development.
This course provides 0.15 General CEUs or 1.5 Contact Hours
Personal Track
Designed for parents, caregivers, and educators looking to deepen their knowledge and understanding and learn practical strategies for supporting neurodivergent children.
Professional Track
- Big Talks Little Talks video course
- PDF Companion Notes
- Learning outcome assessment
- Certificate of completion for 0.15 General CEUs
Personal Track
- Big Talks Little Talks video course
- PDF Companion Notes
Meet Your Instructor
Kelsie Mick Olds, MOT OTR/L
Mick is an occupational therapist working both on- and offline to share knowledge widely about the ways that children grow, develop, and learn. Mick is passionate about play as the core meaningful occupation that underlies childhood, and about equipping adults with the education and practical tools they need to defend children’s right to play.
Mick has a Master of Occupational Therapy degree from the University of Oklahoma and has worked primarily in schools, as well as consulting with teachers, therapists, and parents to advocate on children’s behalf. Mick blogs as The OccuPLAYtional Therapist.
About This Course
What Are Vestibular and Proprioceptive Input?
Most people learn about five senses growing up: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. But there are more senses than that, and two of the most important for understanding behavior and regulation aren't part of the usual list.
The vestibular sense lives in the inner ear and responds to movement. It tells the body where it is in space, whether it's right side up or tilted, and how fast it's moving. Rhythmic, predictable movement tends to soothe. Irregular, unexpected movement tends to alert.
Proprioception is felt deeper in the body, in the muscles, joints, and bones. It's often called the universal regulator because bodies instinctively reach for it when they need to settle down, wake up, or get organized for whatever is coming next.
Why Specific Language Changes What You Can Do
A child who can't sit still, crashes into everything, flops across furniture, or chews the end off every pencil is giving information about what their nervous system is looking for. But without the language to name what kind of input they're seeking, it's easy to reach for interventions that don't actually meet the need.
A weighted lap pad works beautifully for a child who needs pressure. For a child who needs to jump, crash, and use their muscles, it's going to miss the mark entirely. Knowing the difference between vestibular and proprioceptive input, and between the subtypes of proprioception, changes what you try next and how well it works.
This course gives you the framework to see sensory-seeking and sensory-avoiding behavior with more precision, so the strategies you reach for actually match what the body is asking for.
Big Talks, Little Talks
Understanding How Kids Think, Feel, and Behave — One Talk at a Time
Moving & Soothing: The Power of Proprioceptive & Vestibular Input is one of eight modules in Big Talks, Little Talks, a video course series by Kelsie Mick Olds covering key topics in neurodiversity and child development. Modules can be purchased individually or as a complete bundle.
Every module in the series includes two videos:
The professional development component. Kelsie walks through the topic in depth, giving you the knowledge and language to understand what's happening and how to respond. Big Talks run approximately one hour and qualify for continuing education credit.
A kid-friendly video that gives children accessible language to understand what's going on in their own bodies and brains. You can show it directly to a child, break it into shorter chunks across multiple sessions, or watch it yourself to pick up language you can use in your own conversations.
Who Is This Course For?
This course is designed for therapists, parents, caregivers, educators, early childhood educators, and anyone who works with or lives with children whose sensory-seeking or sensory-avoiding behavior can be hard to read in the moment.
Whether you're trying to understand a specific child, looking to deepen your knowledge of proprioceptive and vestibular regulation, or searching for strategies you can actually use across home, school, and therapy settings, this course gives you a practical, well-grounded starting point.
Course Details
Select a track to view what's included.
Course Modules
Big Talk: Moving & Soothing: The Power of Proprioceptive & Vestibular Input
1:17:09This Big Talk introduces the vestibular and proprioceptive senses and their role in regulation.
Presenter Kelsie Olds, OTR/L, explains how the vestibular sense responds to movement and why rhythmic versus irregular input produce opposite regulatory effects. The video introduces proprioception as the universal regulator and presents a three-subtype framework — exertion, impact, and pressure — for understanding how and why people seek different types of proprioceptive input.
Kelsie connects proprioceptive subtype to emotional state and explains why crossing subtypes in intervention may not meet a child’s actual need. The talk closes with practical strategies for incorporating vestibular and proprioceptive input in classroom, therapy, and home settings
My Brain Knows Playing is Smart
19:23This Little Talk introduces kids to the vestibular and proprioceptive senses as two of the body’s bonus senses beyond the familiar five.
Kelsie uses a tiny cup of water as a simple image of how the vestibular sense works, and explains that proprioception — felt in the muscles, bones, and joints — is something bodies instinctively reach for to feel settled and regulated. The talk closes with an encouragement for kids to trust what their bodies are telling them and to bring that to a trusted adult who can help them find safe ways to meet those needs.
What's Included
Course Content
Registration Information
To register, select your preferred course option on this page and complete your purchase. Access to all course materials is granted immediately upon completion of payment. If you require accommodations or have special needs requests, please contact us at ce@thinksensory.com. Groups of 6 or more can inquire about group rates at the same address.
Course Modules
Big Talk: Moving & Soothing: The Power of Proprioceptive & Vestibular Input
1:17:09This Big Talk introduces the vestibular and proprioceptive senses and their role in regulation.
Presenter Kelsie Olds, OTR/L, explains how the vestibular sense responds to movement and why rhythmic versus irregular input produce opposite regulatory effects. The video introduces proprioception as the universal regulator and presents a three-subtype framework — exertion, impact, and pressure — for understanding how and why people seek different types of proprioceptive input.
Kelsie connects proprioceptive subtype to emotional state and explains why crossing subtypes in intervention may not meet a child’s actual need. The talk closes with practical strategies for incorporating vestibular and proprioceptive input in classroom, therapy, and home settings
My Brain Knows Playing is Smart
19:23This Little Talk introduces kids to the vestibular and proprioceptive senses as two of the body’s bonus senses beyond the familiar five.
Kelsie uses a tiny cup of water as a simple image of how the vestibular sense works, and explains that proprioception — felt in the muscles, bones, and joints — is something bodies instinctively reach for to feel settled and regulated. The talk closes with an encouragement for kids to trust what their bodies are telling them and to bring that to a trusted adult who can help them find safe ways to meet those needs.
What's Included
Course Content
Registration Information
To register, select your preferred course option on this page and complete your purchase. Access to all course materials is granted immediately upon completion of payment. If you require accommodations or have special needs requests, please contact us at ce@thinksensory.com. Groups of 6 or more can inquire about group rates at the same address.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:
- Define the vestibular sense and explain how rhythmic and irregular vestibular input produce different regulatory effects in the body.
- Identify the three subtypes of proprioceptive input and describe the behavioral characteristics associated with each.
- Explain how proprioceptive subtype relates to emotional state and why substituting across subtypes may not meet a child’s regulatory need.
- Describe how vestibular and proprioceptive input can be incorporated as regulation tools across classroom, therapy, and home settings.
Continuing Education Details
Video lecture with slide presentation, optional companion notes document.
To receive 0.15 CEUs (1.5 contact hours) for this activity, you must complete all of the following:
- View all required video content in its entirety.
- Pass the post-activity learning outcome assessment with a score of 80% or higher.
- Complete the post-activity evaluation.
Partial credit is not available. You must complete all requirements listed above to receive CEUs and a certificate of completion.
If you do not achieve a passing score of 80% on the learning outcome assessment, you may retake the assessment. There is no limit on retake attempts.
Mick was paid for their contributions to Goal Writing for Autistic Students. Mick receives commission for the sales of Big Talks Little Talks. Mick is the author of a book, “Your Child’s Point of View: Understanding the Reasons Kids Do Unreasonable Things” and receives royalties for its’ sale. Mick is the owner of The OccuPLAYtional Therapist and receives speaking fees.
Mick is Autistic and has friends and family members who are Autistic.
Think Sensory will issue a full refund to a learner who requests cancellation within 10 calendar days of purchase, provided the learner has not accessed any course content. Once any course content has been accessed, no refund will be issued, regardless of how much of the activity has been completed. Due to the digital nature of CEU-eligible PD activities, Think Sensory does not offer partial refunds after content has been accessed.
If Think Sensory cancels or removes a course from the platform, affected learners will be notified in advance and provided with an appropriate remedy. For full details, see our Terms of Service.
To request a cancellation, email ce@thinksensory.com.