Neurodivergent people, including autistics, ADHDers, or people with anxiety, often report interoceptive differences. For example, they may have difficulty noticing body signals resulting in missing clues that inform their emotional or physical experience. Or they may notice body signals but are not sure exactly what the body signals mean uniquely for them, resulting again in unreliable information regarding their emotions or physical health needs. Alternatively, many neurodivergents are often clear on their inner experience but have it misunderstood and/or mislabeled by often well-intentioned people. This can lead to inner confusion and doubt—if everyone around you misinterprets your experience, you might begin to doubt yourself and your interoceptive signals.
Because we all have very different inner bodily sensations, providing a process that allows for discovery and validation of each person’s unique experience becomes important. Therefore, interoceptive activities can be very helpful to many neurodivergent people, specifically when offered in a way that emphasizes individuality.
How Can Interoception Activities Help?
Interoception activities can help many people—including neurodivergents—notice, understand, and regulate their own unique inner experiences.
Research suggests that activities aimed at nurturing interoceptive awareness—such as the adapted body mindfulness activities found in The Interoception Curriculum—can help to lessen anxiety, decrease alexithymia (the difficulty identifying/describing how you feel), improve emotional regulation, and increase the quality of life.
The Interoception Curriculum empowers people with more self-knowledge and self-understanding. The interoception activities provided in the curriculum are designed to guide people thru a step-by-step discovery process:
- First, noticing their body signals (how does my body uniquely feel?)
- Second, connecting their body signals to the meaning that is true for them (what do my body signals mean for me?)
- Third, regulating their body signals (what individualized set of actions helps to change the way my body feels?)
Helping people discover more about their own unique inner experience is far more effective than antiquated approaches that teach a person what they ‘should be’ feeling. It is inaccurate to teach that anxiety, hunger, etc. feels a certain way. It is different for all of us and therefore requires an individualized approach.
Using Interoception Activities with Neurodivergent Clients: ‘Undoing Before Doing’
Often neurodivergent people have lived experiences that lead to inner confusion. This can include a lifetime of having their inner experience being misunderstood, mislabeled, or gaslighted. Additionally, the compliance-based approaches, which are commonly forced upon neurodivergent children and adults, continually condition them to ignore or mask their inner sensations in order to please other people.
Therefore, many times, in our interoception work, there is a lot of “undoing before doing.” Meaning we need to help each person feel regulated and safe enough to notice, (re)connect, and trust their body signals again. Offering a trauma-informed, regulation-focused approach is essential when inviting a neurodivergent client to use interoception activities. And to provide lots of reassurance that there is no wrong way to feel and that their inner experience is always correct and valid.
If you want to learn more about how to increase interoceptive awareness with your neurodivergent clients, we have resources that can help! Our most comprehensive (and popular) resource is The Interoception Curriculum Master Bundle which includes The Interoception Curriculum, Interoception Activity Cards, Interoception Yoga Cards, Interoception Exercise Cards, My Interoception Workbook & On-Demand Course: 3 Steps to Nurturing Interoceptive Awareness.
We also have a wide collection of on-demand courses designed to allow for flexible learning opportunities. Our on-demand courses include unlimited access for 6 months, exclusive handouts, and personalized certificates of completion.
Can Interoception Activities Work with Non-Speaking Clients?
Yes, interoception activities can be used very successfully with non-speaking clients. A question that we hear very, very often is, “How do you effectively provide interoception-based supports for non-speaking clients?” In fact, we hear this question so frequently that we did an entire 2-hour on-demand course on the topic! Some of the tips we highlight for those helping non-speaking clients through increasing their interoceptive awareness include:
- Internal and External Stabilization and Co-Regulation – Help the client to regulate so they can feel safe enough to connect to how their body is feeling.
- Predictability, Sameness, and Routine – Make your interoceptive exercises predictable, incorporate elements of sameness, and try to make it as routine as possible.
- Communication Supports – Match the client and their communication style. Consider visual supports, or other things that might help the client communicate.
- Presume Competence –When interoception activities are presented in a way that is a match to a person’s learning style, they can thrive. Sometimes interoception activities will not go as planned, and that’s okay. When this happens, it’s best to assume it was an instructional inadequacy and not do to a client’s ability to learn.
- Learn from Non-Speaking Individuals – Reference resources by non-speaking individuals to understand and best support their lived experiences (our on-demand courses are great places to start!).
Mindfulness Challenges for Neurodivergent Clients
Body mindfulness is a key factor for strengthening our interoceptive experience, yet traditional body mindfulness can be difficult for many people, including neurodivergent clients. From having to focus for extended periods of time to understanding the abstract concept of exploring sensations that often cannot be seen or felt, it can prove challenging to stay focused and connected to the body. Additionally, if a person has an unsafe relationship with their body due to chronic dysregulation or trauma, they may not feel safe enough to explore this part of themselves.
Given all of the potential accessibility barriers that traditional body mindfulness may present for neurodivergent clients, it becomes important to adapt body mindfulness to be as successful and accessible as possible.
| Strategy | Description |
| Break Up Mindfulness into One Body Part at A Time | Focusing on one body part at a time, like noticing how your hands, feet, or lungs feel, can help reduce cognitive load and provide a simpler goal. |
| Start With External Body Parts and Work Your Way In | For some people, noticing how exterior body parts feel can be easier and more concrete. These body parts, like your nose, eyes, ears, hands, or mouth, can be observed while also trying to notice how that body part feels. After getting comfortable noticing external body parts, then use a slow shift towards noticing the inside body parts. |
| Ensure Full Body Autonomy | Body mindfulness should always be presented as an invitation, not a demand that requires completion. Each person should have full control over the process, with full body autonomy. If someone is hesitant or refuses, consider the why. Perhaps they don’t feel safe in the current environment, or perhaps their body is not regulated enough to do the activity. Or maybe it is as simple as needing to present the body mindfulness exercise differently. |
| Support Communication | Many people struggle to put words to their inner experience and find it helpful to have some communication and/or language support available to them during body mindfulness activities (e.g., a menu of sensation words). However, keep in mind that we all have differences in how our body feels and how we might describe that sensation. For example, someone might describe inner sensations as colors, shapes, animals, or words such as hot/cold/wet/sticky/etc. Stay curious and seek to understand and validate each person’s experience. |
| Evoke Body Sensations in Playful Ways | This work doesn’t need to have an overly serious vibe. It can be effective and playful at the same time. Even adults enjoy the playful aspect of some of our IA Builders as we use them to invite attention to body sensations. Dancing to a favorite song for a few minutes and noticing your heart, squeezing putty and noticing how your hands feel, or rubbing your feet on the carpet and taking note of sensations in your toes are all credible examples of body mindfulness. |
Do You Want to Learn More About Neurodiversity and Interoception?
Providing an interoception-focused process for neurodivergent clients and helping them to deepen their self-awareness can be life-changing.
The Interoception Curriculum can help neurodivergent people strengthen their connection to their bodies. It provides a process for noticing, understanding, and regulating bodily sensations. The first section of The Interoception Curriculum guides the learner to notice body signals in various body parts. Then, in the second section, the learners begin to connect their body signals to emotions. Finally, the third section focuses on guiding learners to discover actions that regulate their bodies and emotions using individualized, feel-good strategies. The overall theme, embedded in all lessons is to affirm and validate each person’s unique inner experience. Register for access to this course below!
