Episode #25: Making Sense of Learning Struggles: A Pediatric Occupational Therapist Explains

In this episode of Let’s Get Curious, we’re joined by Missy Broxton, MS, OTR/L, a pediatric occupational therapist with over 28 years of experience specializing in sensory integration, functional vision, and child development. Missy shares her bottom-up approach to occupational therapy, which focuses on building strong neurological and sensory foundations to support learning, behavior, and emotional regulation in children.Together, we explore the Pyramid of Learning and why challenges with reading, writing, attention, and behavior often stem from gaps in early development. Missy explains how prenatal factors, primitive reflexes, sensory processing, and motor development create the foundation for academic success and daily functioning. When these foundational systems are overlooked, children may appear inattentive, dysregulated, or behind in school — even when they are capable and intelligent.The conversation dives into sensory-motor development, including the importance of crawling, motor planning, posture, proprioception, and vestibular processing. Missy highlights how retained primitive reflexes can impact coordination, emotional regulation, and executive functioning, and why movement-based interventions are essential for nervous system organization and learning.A major focus of the episode is functional vision, an often-missed contributor to learning difficulties. Missy breaks down key visual skills such as tracking, saccades, convergence, and visual accommodation, explaining how visual inefficiencies can affect reading comprehension, handwriting, attention, and classroom performance. Through personal stories and clinical examples, she illustrates why visual challenges are frequently mistaken for behavioral or learning disorders.This episode is a must-listen for parents, educators, therapists, and caregivers who want to better understand sensory processing differences, neurodivergent learners, and brain-based learning. By shifting the lens from behavior to nervous system function, Let’s Get Curious offers practical insight, compassion, and clarity — because lasting change starts at the foundation.SHOW NOTES:Safe & Sound Protocol:  Listening therapy to shift the nervous system out of flight and flight to regulation.The Out of Sync Child by Karen Kranowitz: How to understand sensory processing differences.Building Blocks Pediatric Therapies website:  To learn more about Missy Broxton or to get in touch.Pyramid of Learning: from Hands on Solutions discussed in this podcast and can be viewed on our Youtube Channel.  Pyramid of Learning Watch on Youtube