About Us

The Sensory Path

The Sensory Path | Enrichment for Children with Sensory Processing Issues

Holly and Madison are a mother-daughter duo working tirelessly around the clock on all things The Sensory Path™.

Holly is a retired school teacher with over 20 years of experience. She has worked in a variety of teaching positions preK-12. The majority of her experience is as a special education teacher. She is an autism specialist and has served as an autism consultant for countless children in her local community.
The Sensory Path™ was born out of Holly’s experience working with sensory sensitive children. She started to notice a difference in their academic performance after receiving proper sensory input to desensitize them. After working with occupational therapists, physical therapists, and autism experts, she created The Sensory Path™. The difference in the academic performance of her students was remarkable. Their cognitive function and willingness to participate in classroom activities increased substantially.

In addition to Holly’s professional background working with sensory sensitive populations, The Sensory Path™ also serves a personal cause. By no surprise to Holly, Madison was diagnosed with Aspergers at the age of 16. After countless years of being misdiagnosed by medical doctors, all of Madison’s sensory processing issues finally had a diagnosis. Aspergers is frequently missed in young females because of how differently it can present. Holly has nurtured sensory sensitivity for over 24 years with her own daughter. This experience has only improved her understanding of sensory processing disorders.
Holly is the President of the company and works as our creative director.

Madison serves as our Vice President and lead designer. Despite her challenges in school due to frequent misdiagnosis of her sensory processing disorder, she found relief in her art. As an extraordinary graphic designer, Madison helps create all of our products from scratch! From concept, to sketch, to digitization, Madison creates most of our designs while working closely with Holly to ensure that each product meets a very specific formula to provide the appropriate sensory inputs.

Erika Robinson is our CFO. She is the backbone to our company! In addition to adding a valuable professional business side to The Sensory Path, she also brings a knowledgebase that helps our company thrive. She spends most of her day communicating with customers and working on district-wide school initiatives including bid proposals for large scale projects.

The Sensory Path™ is a woman owned and operated business. We create everything in our large scale printing facility. We are proud of the work we create. Our mission is to improve sensory experience for ALL children at every educational level. We have created an intentionally designed product that aims for a more inclusive sensory experience to improve the educational outcomes of students across the world.

The Research

What makes The Sensory Path™ unique is the research behind what we have formulated. As a special education teacher, Holly Clay, the developer of TSP, served a large percentage of students with autism. She noticed when a child started losing cognitive functioning during the learning process, it helped to give the child some sensory input. She began studying which series of movements seemed to offer the child the necessary proprioceptive and vestibular input to help the child regain focus and control, which ultimately increased cognition and retention of new information. She saw a huge reduction of sensory seeking behaviors and an increase in cognitive functioning.

Further Understanding

When a child with a sensory processing disorder, such as autism, is in a general education classroom, their brain is trying to process several different things at once. From sitting up in the chair, the climate in the room, the other children next to them, the smells, the teacher talking, another child talking, the movements in the room- everything that we can usually tune out, they cannot help but fixate on.

Sensory Break Header

Kids with sensory processing disorders can’t just simply turn off the radio of their brains. They need a brain break. Their neurological pathways have essentially jammed and must be cleared. By taking the sensory overloaded kid to our Sensory Path™, they will complete a series of movements that are designed to release the child’s internalized tension and allow their body and brain to refocus.

What Sensory Processing Disorder Feels Like

Imagine having a radio on full volume while trying to teach a child to read. It is nearly impossible, and you might even get a little anxiety, right? The muscles tense, you become agitated, you start talking a little louder, maybe faster or slower. What is happening to you is your body’s response to a stimuli. However, luckily you are able to turn that radio off, and your body adjusts.

More Than Just a Path

We have consulted with Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and autism experts about the movements that our sensory paths must include to reduce sensory need and not overstimulate the child. Our research has taken years to perfect, and we are finally able to bring it to the market to help other children become better thinkers.