Multisensory Tools for Self Regulation: The Playlists We Keep Coming Back To
Walk into any of our offices and you'll notice something before you notice the couches. There's a spin chair in one corner. A weighted stuffed animal or lap pad in another. Lighting you can change. Options to add or mask sounds. Every room is built to be touched, adjusted, moved through, not just sat in.
That's not decoration. That's the work.
We learn with our whole bodies, not just our minds, and that includes learning how to feel okay again when we don't. Multisensory tools, the things you can touch, hear, move, and adjust, are shortcuts. They teach the nervous system how to self-regulate faster than talking alone usually can. For a lot of the neurodivergent clients we work with, that's not a nice-to-have. It's the whole ballgame.
In neurodiversity Affirming Therapy: Every journey to "what works" looks different
Here's the part that never stops being interesting to us: we can offer the same ten tools to ten different people, and every single one of them will land differently. One person gravitates straight to the spin chair. Another needs the lights dimmed before anything else can help. A third explores emotion and regulation easily through art. Someone else barely registers the sensory tools in the room but comes alive the second music enters the picture.
We don't know what's going to work for you until we watch you try it. That's not a failure of planning. That's the actual process. Regulation isn't one-size-fits-all, and the fastest path there is usually trial, not theory.
Why this actually works for your neurodivergent brain
There's real science behind why we lean on multisensory tools so heavily, and it's worth understanding, because it's not just "movement is nice" or "music is soothing." It's how the nervous system is built.
Neurodivergent brains often process sensory input differently than neurotypical brains do, sometimes registering it more intensely than expected, sometimes barely registering it at all. That difference isn't a flaw to correct. It's a different wiring, and it directly affects how someone regulates, learns, and moves through the world. A sound that's mildly annoying to one nervous system can be genuinely overwhelming to another. A texture, a light, a rhythm, all of it lands differently depending on how a particular brain is built to receive it.
Here's where multisensory tools come in. When you engage more than one sense at a time, touch and sound together, or movement and sound, the brain builds the experience across more pathways than it would relying on just one. More pathways means more ways in, and more ways back to steady. That's part of why a fidget alone might not settle a nervous system the way a fidget paired with a specific song can. You're not doubling the tool. You're giving the brain more than one route to the same destination.
This is also why we don't treat sensory tools as separate from movement. For a lot of neurodivergent brains, especially autistic brains, movement and sensory processing are deeply intertwined systems, not two unrelated things happening at once. A body that's allowed to move, spin, rock, or pace while it processes something hard is often doing real regulatory work, not just fidgeting through it.
None of this means more sensory input is automatically better. The goal isn't maximum stimulation. It's the right combination, for this particular nervous system, in this particular moment. Which brings us back to the part that never changes: you won't know what that combination is until you try a few.
Why we keep coming back to music for self regulation
Of all the multisensory tools in our offices, music is the one we return to again and again, with clients of every age. Something about it touches the soul. Our heartbeats synchronize to it. It changes mood. It raises energy or brings it down. It sparks movement when a body feels stuck. It can hand you a piece of courage you didn't have five minutes ago, or hand you permission to finally rest.
That's why we built a playlist series: 15-minute sets, each one designed to meet a specific moment. Not a two-hour background mix. Something short enough to actually use between one part of your day and the next.
The list will keep growing, so check back often. Here's what's live so far:
Grounded and Growing by Janae Freeman LGMFT— for settling an anxious or scattered nervous system back into the present moment.
Soft Landing by Janae Freeman LGMFT — for winding down after a hard day, easing the shift from overstimulated to actually resting.
Okay We Got This by Janae Freeman LGMFT— for building courage and momentum right before something hard: a test, a difficult conversation, a day you weren't looking forward to.
Draw the Line by Robin Brannan LCMFT— for practicing the feeling of a boundary. Songs that help you gather the strength to take up space. This one includes quite a few musical theater songs, a favorite genre of mine.
"I Can" Songs for Kids — confidence-building anthems for younger kids, the kind of songs that make a kid feel a little braver walking out the door.
A Parent's Love Letter to their Child — for parents. Songs about the kind of love that doesn't need conditions attached. Play it together on your car ride, or when you need a reminder that your parenting is built on love.
Explore the full playlist series here.
Back to school: build the four moments, not just the routine
Every school year, we get some version of the same question: how do we help our kid (or ourselves) handle the transition back? Our answer isn't a single big strategy. It's four small ones, repeated daily, at the moments that matter most: a booster to start the day, a transition strategy for the shift from school or work back to home (or any other major shift in the day), a wind-down before bed, and a quick reset for when stress has already built up before you've had a chance to catch it.
For young kids, these can be simple, almost tiny. A short poem or story you say together at drop-off. A song that always means bedtime. A stretch sequence you do every morning, just the two of you. When my own daughter started preschool, our transition phrase was always the same: "Something amazing will happen today, and we don't know yet what it is. I'm excited to hear about it when I pick you up." That was the whole ritual. It was enough.
For teens, the same four moments matter, but they usually need more: more time, more intention, sometimes literally shutting out other input to let the reset actually land. That might mean a specific spot in the house that's theirs for it, or control over lighting and sound in addition to movement. A quick reset for a teen often looks less like "take a breath" and more like five minutes alone with headphones on and the door closed, and that's not avoidance. That's the tool working.
For college students, structure is what makes this stick. Reset time has to be built into the day on purpose, or it won't happen at all. The walk between classes is a natural spot for a playlist. A reset can go on the calendar the same way a class does, fifteen minutes, protected, non-negotiable.
For parents, look for the pockets of time that already exist. Sitting in the car during pickup. Waiting outside a practice or an appointment. The stretch of time in the kitchen when your kids already know not to interrupt you. Those are good moments to use a playlist or a body-based reset of your own. And here's the bonus: if you're open about what you're doing, don't hide it. Your kids may want to join in. Regulation modeled out loud is still regulation being taught.
This is what the work of neurodiversity affirming parenting actually looks like
None of this replaces therapy, but it's not separate from it either. It's the same principle that fills our offices with spin chairs and adjustable lighting, applied to something you can use anywhere: your body has more tools for finding steady ground than your mind alone does, and the right tool is worth trying on, not just reading about.
If this is resonating, and you're looking for support that treats your (or your child's) neurodivergent brain as something to understand rather than something to fix, that's exactly the work we do. Learn more about our neurodiversity affirming therapy in Bethesda, MD.
Robin Brannan is an expert neurodiversity affirming family therapist who has been helping neuroexceptional families thrive for over twenty five years. She guides parents, children, individual adults, and partners in connecting with each other, healing from past misunderstandings, and using their strengths to build the life they want. Her work is playful, culturally responsive, and designed to bring joy to you and your family. She directly supervises every therapist on the team at Better Together Family Therapy, and her commitment to high quality culturally responsive care is clearly reflected in this team.
Explore her specialties including Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy, LGBTQIA+ Affirming Therapy, Teen and Tween Therapy, and Child and Family Therapy. Learn more about my approach on my About page.
