Sensory Needs Assessment in Croydon
Home visits in Croydon, London
This is a specialist service offered where your local occupational therapist's training and scope of practice cover sensory processing - check availability for your area on the county page.
Sensory needs look different in every home and every family in Croydon, which is why this assessment starts with your everyday routines rather than a generic checklist. Your local occupational therapist visits your Croydon home to see things as they actually happen.
What to expect in Croydon
- A conversation about daily routines, triggers and what already helps
- Observation in familiar, everyday surroundings
- Practical, low-cost strategies you can put in place straight away
- A written summary to share with family, school or other professionals as needed
Who this helps
- Children and adults whose sensory responses affect daily routines
- Families noticing sensitivity to noise, touch, textures or movement affecting everyday life
- People seeking practical strategies rather than a purely diagnostic process
- Schools and families wanting a shared, practical understanding of a child's sensory needs
Your Occupational Therapist in Croydon
Your local occupational therapist
Book directly with the qualified occupational therapist covering this area. Services shown are matched to their confirmed scope of practice and local travel area.
Shail Shah
Occupational Therapist
Qualifications: HCPC OT091139
Phone: 07741 397 865
Please mention Mobile Occupational Therapist when you call.
Email: shailshah0221@gmail.com
If sensory processing is affecting daily life for you or your child in Croydon, get in touch to check current local availability and what an assessment would involve.
Your local occupational therapist provides home visits throughout Croydon, from the town centre and Addiscombe through to the residential areas around South Croydon and Shirley, as well as the surrounding villages.
Croydon is a large town in South London known for its diverse culture and vibrant shopping district. It features landmarks such as the iconic Croydon Clocktower and Fairfield Halls, and is well-connected by public transport to central London and surrounding areas.
Areas around Croydon covered
- Croydon town centre
- Addiscombe
- South Croydon
- Shirley
- Purley
- New Addington
- Sanderstead
- Selhurst
- Warlingham
- Kenley
- Coulsdon
- Caterham
- Whyteleafe
If your village or part of Croydon isn't listed, please still get in touch – your local occupational therapist may well be able to travel to you.
If you're just outside Croydon, get in touch anyway - your local occupational therapist covers the surrounding villages and rural addresses too.
How much does this cost?
Your local occupational therapist confirms their fee before you book - see our prices page for current guide pricing for Sensory Needs Assessment and other services.
See PricesFrequently asked questions
Is this an assessment for autism?
No. A sensory needs assessment does not diagnose autism or ADHD and cannot rule either out - diagnosis sits with paediatricians, psychologists and specialist assessment teams. Sensory differences turn up in people with those diagnoses and in people without any. An assessment can be genuinely useful alongside a diagnostic pathway, but it should never be offered as a route into one.
Is this only for children, or do adults have sensory assessments too?
Adults have them as well, though the questions look different: an open-plan office, supermarket lighting, clothing that cannot be worn for a full working day, or the noise of a family kitchen. Sensory tolerance can also change after a brain injury or a stroke, and that shift often gets attributed to mood or personality before anyone thinks of the environment.
Will a sensory diet fix this?
A sensory diet is the term for a planned pattern of sensory activity built into the day. It is a way of organising support, not a treatment, and it does not remove a sensory difference. It can make particular parts of the day more manageable, and it should be reviewed at intervals rather than followed indefinitely out of habit. If it is not helping after a fair trial, the honest response is to change it rather than to conclude it was not done properly.
The difficulties come and go. Does that mean it is behaviour rather than sensory?
Not on its own. Sensory responses vary with tiredness, hunger, illness, pain and how demanding the day has already been, so the same shop or the same jumper can be fine one week and impossible the next. Behaviour and sensory responses are also not two separate boxes; distress usually looks like behaviour from the outside. The useful part of variability is that it points at what in the day or the environment can be changed.
Who carries out the Sensory Needs Assessment visit?
A qualified, HCPC-registered occupational therapist covering Croydon carries out the assessment and any follow-up visits in person, at your home.
How is Sensory Needs Assessment priced?
Your occupational therapist confirms their fee for Sensory Needs Assessment before you book - see our prices page for current guide pricing.
Will I get anything in writing?
Where relevant, you'll receive a written summary or report of the visit, agreed with you at the outset - particularly for equipment recommendations, adaptations or reports for a third party.
What happens after the first visit?
Your occupational therapist will agree next steps with you directly - this might be a follow-up visit, a set of recommendations to action yourself, or referral on if something falls outside their scope.