56. Is Your Child's Sensory Bucket Full? Sensory-Friendly Clothing Can Help! with Julia DeNey
In this episode of the Nourishing Autism podcast, Brittyn talks with Julia DeNey, founder of Sense-ational You, a clothing line for neurodivergent children, emphasizing sensory-friendly designs that foster independence and confidence.
They delve into the brand's creation, its mission for inclusivity, and how it addresses common sensory challenges through innovative apparel. This conversation is a must-listen for parents seeking practical solutions to enhance their neurodivergent child's comfort and self-expression, offering insights into adaptive fashion's role in improving daily life for these children.
You can shop Sense-ational You clothing here: https://shopsenseationalyou.com/
Keep up with Julia & Sense-ational You here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/senseational_you/
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TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I'm Brittyn, a Registered Dietitian and autism sibling. I have a passion for helping parents of neurodivergent kids navigate nutrition and wellness for their child, one small step at a time. Here we'll explore practical nutrition tips, learn from top autism experts, break down the newest research, and share inspirational stories that will empower you to utilize nutrition to help your child feel their best and thrive.
Listen in while picking kids up from school, sitting in a therapy waiting room, taking a quick walk or wherever you find yourself, looking for some inspiration and a friend to guide you along this journey. This is Nourishing Autism.
Brittyn: If your child has sensory processing disorder or sensory aversions to food and clothes, this is a fantastic episode for you. I had the chance to speak with Julia DeNey, who is the founder of Sensational You, which is an adaptive apparel brand for autistic children who need help regulating so they can be successful across different environments, gain independence, and have the confidence to [00:01:00] be themselves.
I connected with Julia on Instagram and I was just so intrigued by her designs and how they supported children in their sensory processing and giving back to their sensory needs that I just knew that I had to bring her on the podcast. She was also involved in my kickoff for my membership site and it was just so fun to be able to spread the word about her amazing brand.
Now, Julia, she went to school at Cornell and she established and ran a volunteer partnership with a local autism preschool for her sorority. And from this passion, she focused her fashion studies on the special needs of autistic children. So she began building Sensational You after graduating in 2020.
And during this time, Julia got a job in special education, to work with the students she was designing for and the therapist who would use and recommend the clothing. When we were talking, I just kept thinking back to my brother and how he could have benefited from this so much when he was in school.
They have different products from [00:02:00] compression shirts to hoodies that you can pull up around your ears and eyes to help reduce sensory input. I mean, it is just so cool to hear about all of the thoughtful and intentional products that she has created. Now, I always think back to what I call a sensory bucket, and this is basically a child's sensory threshold. And all of the sensory experiences that they have every single day pour into this bucket.
And so when we start to have this bucket that starts overfilling, we start to see overstimulation and different behaviors that are just associated with that child just being so overstimulated. Now, many different things can add to that sensory bucket throughout the day. That can be food, which is a hugely sensory impactful experience, but also their clothing.
And so we have a really great conversation about actually how helping them get the right sensory input from their clothing can actually play into success with many [00:03:00] other things, including eating. So I'm really excited for you to listen to this podcast and hear more about Julia's amazing brand. We will link them in the show notes below so you can check out her amazing products and try them out for your child with additional sensory needs. Welcome Julia to the Nourishing Autism Podcast.
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. I am so excited to have Julia DeNey here. She is a really cool person that I've been able to connect with just over the past few months and runs a fantastic clothing brand and I am going to let you explain what it is and who you are so that you can tell us more and how this can really serve the people over here at Nourishing Autism.
Julia: Absolutely, yeah. I worked as a special education para for a few years after graduation while building Sensational You, which is a sensory clothing brand designed specifically for neurodivergent kids to meet their sensory needs so that they're able to regulate wherever they are and have the confidence to be themselves [00:04:00] and increase their independence through dressing.
Brittyn: It's so amazing because it's one of those things that you don't know is necessary until you've been there and experienced it either personally or with someone that you really love and care for. And I haven't seen any kind of clothing brands, of course I've seen adaptive clothing lines, but I haven't seen any that are sensory friendly, that are geared toward children who are neurodivergent, so this seems really interesting.
Julia: Yeah, I think the adaptive fashion space is really starting to grow, and the fashion world is starting to really try to meet the needs of those with different disabilities. And I think it's really done through a lot of small brands, finding different needs that aren't being met yet. I think some of the larger collections with larger brands are really heavily geared towards physical disabilities, which is super great, but I really just saw the gap for kind of more of these invisible disabilities and needs like sensory and regulation in a way that these bigger brands may not be aware of, or just aren't addressing yet.
Brittyn: How did you even decide to [00:05:00] create this brand and go on this whole journey? Because I know that running a clothing line is no walk in the park, so tell me more about how you came upon creating this.
Julia: Yeah, it was definitely not something I saw myself doing initially entering college. But I was majoring in fashion design at Cornell and I knew I wanted to do something impactful with fashion.
I wasn't quite sure what I wanted that to be initially when entering but we took classes on different, basically versions of the functional apparel and adaptive fashion was one of them. And I began volunteering at an autism preschool that was local to the college. And it was really their therapists and teachers that brought up to me, knowing I was in fashion design, interested in children's clothing, the struggles a lot of their children faced with the clothing they wear.
And then also just finding convenient ways to help them give the tools they need to regulate. So I really just started designing for the kids of that school and really started to ask the [00:06:00] teachers and therapists specifically what their needs were. And I really was trying to just do research for them to figure out how I could help them, like almost present them with a solution.
And I really realized there was nothing out there as an easy solution. So I started prototyping and designing things and it was really graduating in 2020 with COVID that pushed me over the edge and kind of gave me the time I needed to start figuring out how I could make it a brand and made me realize that there was a great need for it far beyond just the local community I'd connected with and through the online community really saw the need and the excitement for it.
Brittyn: Totally. That's so amazing. Well, tell me. Tell me how it works. Like, how are these items, how are they supporting kids with sensory aversions or sensory needs? And how does that... totally, yeah...on the autism spectrum, I mean, put it all together for us.
Julia: Yeah, totally. I think one of the big things that was universal across all the kids, was that a lot of kids struggle with the [00:07:00] tags and the seams of the clothes.
So that was kind of the first universal thing that I wanted to address and get rid of in our clothes. So they're all made with printed on tags like the label information you need legally, but there's no actual tag that will rub against their skin and flip around and all of our seams are sewn to be flat.
So there's not that bit of fabric on the inside of your clothes that will rub back and forth. That was something I knew off the bat and from all our consumer research knew that that was pretty universally hated. And really wanted to address first. And then from there, I really wanted to go deeper into different sensory needs to help with regulation, where a lot of the autism experience really came in and working with those students and occupational therapists to figure out how to address those in a convenient way. So for kids who are more sensory avoiding, you know, we have sound reducing panels in our hoodies. So the hood helps block out some of that noise for them, especially if they refuse to wear the headphones that a lot [00:08:00] of them don't like the feeling of it. So I tried to create an alternative for them. And then for kids who are more sensory seeking and really want more input, we made a compression line T-shirt that's fully adjustable, so you can adjust it to the level of compression they need throughout the day or loosen it, tighten it and really try to give them that input in a way that's, one, convenient because you're not running around trying to find a vest in some random closet that's not near you when you need it, and also discreet for the kids who don't want to wear a vest over their clothes but love that input.
Brittyn: Totally. I mean, I see such a need for what you're doing. My brother is on the spectrum, and he's 28 now, but I mean, growing up, I really remember how much his clothing really bothered him. He would only wear very specific sandals, and we had you know, 10 different colors of the same sandal because it didn't rub his foot a certain way.
He couldn't wear long sleeve, long sleeve shirts, they all had to be short sleeved. The [00:09:00] tag always had to be out and it was like, yes, it had to be printed on. You couldn't just cut it out because it still left a piece in it. He wore his socks inside out... totally... because the seam... he still does that, is wear his socks. Yeah. Because the seam bothers him...
Julia: The socks are such a big one too and definitely something I want to address and figure out a good solution for and it's definitely kind of tricky in the way they make socks, but it's something I'm working on and want to be able to offer because I know that's such a universally hard thing to overcome.
Brittyn: Oh my gosh, yes, I mean that was one of the biggest things for him and it's like trying to adjust your sock just perfectly where it's not hitting you in any areas, so, but yes, so I mean still when I buy clothing for him for Christmas, I always have to think, okay, what, like, long sleeve is not going to be best for him, it has to fit a certain way, and so it's really nice.
I mean, this was also in the 90s whenever he was, you know, dressing himself as a child and it would have been so nice to have something like this then, but of course we didn't. So it's really cool that [00:10:00] you're putting all of this together for parents because they don't know where to go and they're just trying to adapt their own thing.
Julia: Totally. And I think for some parents i've run into too, it's hard to even know what you would need to adapt in the clothing. I think, tags are an easy one that parents really can notice the kid pulling at and try to cut them out or try to rip them out. Which as you said, can still leave a little bit that's annoying or cause a hole.
But some things I found, parents knew there was a problem for but didn't know a good solution, such as waistbands on pants. They're like, any buttons or snaps or those buttons that go on the inside of kids clothes you pull to adjust and are so uncomfortable. So we made soft elastic waistbands for our pants, but also stitched down the elastic so it won't roll on them.
And these certain design considerations that are hard to know how to adapt at home or exactly what the problem is. Even zippers on the jackets we made magnetic closures, which one helps anyone with independence if they struggle with fine motor, [00:11:00] but also buttons and snaps and zippers can be irritating even from just a sensory standpoint.
So the magnets create a much cleaner close.
Brittyn: That's amazing. And I think there's something to be said too about, I always say like a sensory bucket, but a child sensory threshold and throughout the day, I mean, every child has their own sensory bucket. This is just how I explain it to my families that I work with, but every single sensory experience that they have pours some water in the bucket.
And then when we pour too much water in there, then we're seeing this bucket is overflowing and we start seeing overstimulation behaviors. And so a lot of little, you know, times throughout the day where we're just pouring a tiny bit in, and that can be a seam on your clothes or something. Right. A parent isn't realizing that is an issue, kind of like you said.
If you haven't had sensory processing disorder, or don't have any, you really just have to be in their shoes to really [00:12:00] understand. And so when I talk about eating, I also talk about, okay, how can we, turn down the rest of their sensory experience, or at least not overfill their sensory bucket.
Because for eating, it's overload, sensory overload. And so trying to think of what's happening the rest of the day where we could potentially support them and help prevent overstimulation at the end of the day when food comes in the mix. So things like this are just pulling back on free exposure that they have all throughout the day and just making them more comfortable, which is also a huge thing.
Julia: Always a plus. Yeah, I think that's such a good point and the way you phrase that is so perfect because I say that all the time. I'm like, even if a tag or a seam normally doesn't bother them overall, you'd say, oh, they can wear any clothes. They don't fight me putting them on in the morning.
It might be by noon or the afternoon. If they're already really overstimulated, say at school, or say you went out, or whatever it is, and they're already overstimulated, something that normally wouldn't bother [00:13:00] them, that might become very irritating, and you don't realize it, because at the moment of, say, dressing, they weren't bothered by it, but it is all these things, as you said, that build up and fill your bucket, which is why I love that analogy.
Brittyn: That's true. I actually hadn't thought of that, that, yeah, they could be wearing the same exact thing, and four or five hours later, it can be a completely different sensory experience to them, given what they've experienced.
Julia: Yeah, they might be able to tolerate it when they're calm and don't have too much stimulation at home.
It's the only thing that could be bothering them, so it's not a big deal, you know, you can handle something little. But as things build up, it might be something that starts to bother them more and more and more, and then by the end of the day, they're ready to just strip off their clothes because they just can't handle it.
Brittyn: Totally, yes, absolutely. Well, so, when you were talking about your sensory hoodie, that was the first product that I saw of yours and I was like, holy cow, and you actually had a reel, I think it was you sitting on a plane and you put it on.
Julia: Yes. Yeah, it's my go to plane hoodie now.[00:14:00]
Brittyn: Well, it's funny because I didn't see that reel until recently, but whenever I saw it for the first time, I was like, Oh my gosh, my brother would totally use this on a plane. And then I saw you do that recently. I was like, Oh my gosh, what a cool product. And then you also gave away a pair of sensory joggers in my launch party for my membership.
And it's so kind of you to be involved in that. Oh my gosh, of course. I have learned some of your products, but I would be curious to hear, what is your favorite product that you offer?
Julia: Yeah, I definitely think, it's so funny, I love different elements of all of them, because they all have their own challenges and design considerations.
But I think overall, that sensory, sound reducing hoodie is definitely my favorite. I think because of how universal it is. But yeah, anyone can use it for traveling because it has a built in eye mask and that's so great on a plane. And then it's great for anyone with sound sensitivity or just like wants to take the edge off and doesn't like wearing headphones.
I love just being able to offer that alternative. [00:15:00] I think I also love it because it was the most challenging to design and figure out how to produce and actually led to some fun connections along the way. Just calling different soundproofing companies that are so unrelated to fashion and half of them were wildly confused by my inquiry and had no clue what to do.
But I met one guy who worked at a company and it was passed along to him because his son's autistic and it was just such a cool connection because he knew instantly why I wanted to create what I wanted to create and how it needed to function and he instantly was talking through a few things and he was like, nope, this is the material you need, this is how much put it right here, it'll do this for them and it was so perfect and I just love that it kind of brought this connection in and how much everyone kind of sees a need for something like this for the autism community and everyone's really there to support each other and have these innovations that will help the whole community and it was so fun.
We're still friends and connect and he's still cheering on the company, [00:16:00] which is so fun and just kind of one of those random connections that was awesome.
Brittyn: That's amazing. And yeah, again, having a son on the spectrum. He was like, yes, I know exactly why this is needed. I know how to engineer this.
It's so cool.
Julia: Yeah, he was like, I know what sounds are the most bothersome. And he actually had a great analogy for it. He was like, you know, when you drive by another car, you only hear the bass of their music playing because the mass of the cars is blocking out the higher frequency noises, and he was like, so we put in this material to kind of act as the same thing, you're putting mass into the hood that will block out the higher frequency noises that can be really bothersome.
And just when he explained it like that, I was like, that is perfect. Yes, that's exactly what we need to do. I'm so glad you get it and understand what we're doing. And it was great. And so I think that's why it's my favorite design. Cause it really came from a team working together to create something that we knew was needed.
Brittyn: Totally. I know. I'm like, Oh, I should [00:17:00] have gotten my brother one of these for Christmas. That would have been the best gift because he wears little earplugs often when we're out and about because it will or noise cancelling head phones. And you do make adult sizes, correct?
Julia: Yes. Yeah. So that's our first design. We expanded it into adult sizes and we hope to be able to keep continuing to do so.
It's been really cool connecting with a lot of autistic adults who talk about really wanting the products and even parents whose you know, 10, 11, 12 year old or however age, they're already in adult sizes. And that's still very much in the market and the age frame we were originally designing for.
And so that was also really interesting to see that a lot of them are already in adult sizes nowadays. So we're really trying to work on expanding those and hopefully doing some more pre sales of different adult sizes soon.
Brittyn: That's so cool. Well, my last question I have for you, I know we've talked about autism quite a bit, but is your clothing line specifically for kids on the autism spectrum or who can wear it?
Who is it helpful for?
Julia: [00:18:00] Yeah, I love this question because I do get messages sometimes that say like, oh I'm not autistic or my child isn't autistic, is it okay if we buy these clothes? And the answer is absolutely yes. I think what's really cool about the adaptive market as a whole, and anyone designing any product for people with disabilities, is that it really can be universal.
A lot of people have kind of switched over to saying universal design. And I think it's because, kind of as we talked about, you can use the hoodie on a plane. Anyone can enjoy clothing without a tag. No one loves the feeling of the tag rubbing on their neck in the sweater. But some of us can tolerate it.
But I think what's great about designing clothes that don't have it is that everyone can enjoy the clothes and everyone can wear them. I even think some of the things like our compression t shirt, that's not a specific need just to autism. You can have sensory needs and be a sensory seeker no matter what and across different disabilities and even not and different neurotypes and anyone can enjoy it and potentially need it so [00:19:00] I love to say it's truly for everyone and by everyone buying it and supporting it, it's making it very inclusive and it doesn't become a product that is very clearly for someone with a disability. It's just clothing anyone can wear and it can just be what it is and everyone loves it and it doesn't have to be kind of a call out if you don't want it to be
Brittyn: That's amazing.
Well, I'm sure after listening to this episode, a lot of people are going to wonder where they can go grab their own sensory friendly hoodie and all of the different products that you offer, where can people find you? And where can they shop your brand?
Julia: Absolutely, yeah. So you can shop right on our website, which is just shopsensationalyou.com. And our Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, all the social medias are pretty much sensational you, sensational underscore you. And that's sensational with an extra E. So it's S E N S E-ational for your senses.
Brittyn: Perfect. I love the name. I'll link everything in the show [00:20:00] notes so they can find you super easily as well.
Julia: Perfect.
Brittyn: Thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure we could talk so much longer about all of it. I love to keep these episodes in bite sized lengths so that people can listen to them on their way to therapy or sitting in the parking lot. I love that. But definitely connect with Julia.
That's where we connected on Instagram. I am just so grateful that you've been here and chatted with us.
Julia: Yeah, I love connecting with new people, therapists, parents. So definitely feel free to message and I love that that's how we connected and it's so great. I love how supportive and inclusive the community is and everyone just wants to talk and connect.
So definitely anyone feel free to reach out.
Brittyn: Thanks so much. Thanks everyone for listening.
[00:21:00]
Transcribed by Descript
About Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD
Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, is a distinguished Registered Dietitian and Autism Nutrition Expert, known for her innovative, sensory-friendly feeding approach to nutrition for children on the autism spectrum. As the founder of the Nourishing Autism Collective, and as an autism sibling herself, Brittyn brings both professional expertise and personal understanding to her work. She empowers families with her expert guidance, helping children receive essential nutrients for optimal health and development. Her strategies are tailored to the unique dietary needs and sensory preferences of each child.
Brittyn's influence extends beyond her membership site through her active social media presence and her popular podcast, 'Nourishing Autism'. Her educational content on Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms has established her as a leading voice in autism nutrition, providing valuable resources, practical advice, and a supportive community for parents and professionals.
