A cannon moment happened for me in my first outpatient job as a clinical fellow. I was co-treating alongside a wonderful OT colleague who said these words to me: “You can’t talk right now and neither can he. It’s too much.” As a new therapist, I almost cried. A speech therapist working with a child on the schedule to receive speech therapy, and she was telling me I couldn’t talk?? If you can imagine, this child was extremely dysregulated and cried in response to everything that we did except for when we were in silence and the only demand or expectation was that he let us connect with him by pushing him on the swing. It was then that I delved into the word regulation and what it meant. Since then, it has been at the forefront of all that I do as a therapist. Without a regulated sensory system, the brain has to work double time to succeed at higher level skills such as listening, understanding, and speaking. I prioritize connection, regulation, and following the child’s lead, meeting them on their level to help them progress toward their goals.