A Visual Framework for Interoception
From Roots to Fruit, The Integrated Interoception Tree Model™ illustrates how internal body signals are shaped by sensory foundations, experience, and environment, and how they support meaning, regulation, and participation.
Interoception serves as the central organizing process, linking the body to behavior.
Koscinski, C. (2026). From Roots to Fruit, The Integrated Interoception Tree Model™. Executive Function Institute. www.ExecutiveFunctionInstitute.com
MODEL BREAKDOWN
Ground
The ground reflects experience, relationships, and environment, shaping how the nervous system develops and responds.
Roots
The roots represent sensory systems that provide foundational input, including tactile, proprioceptive, vestibular, and internal signals.
Trunk
Interoception
The trunk represents interoception as an integrative process, continuously organizing internal signals and supporting access to awareness.
Canopy
The canopy reflects meaning, regulation, and participation, where internal signals are interpreted and used to support engagement
Fruit
The fruit represents observable behavior and participation, reflecting how interoceptive processing translates into real-world action
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE MODEL
Contemporary neuroscience describes interoception as an active process in which the brain continuously predicts, updates, and responds to internal body signals. The processes are shaped by experience, influenced by context, and dependent on the state of the nervous system.
From Roots to Fruit, The Integrated Interoception Tree Model™ represents interoception as a dynamic, hierarchical, and state-dependent system. Internal signals are continuously updated, integrated, and used to guide meaning, regulation, and behavior.
Access to interoceptive awareness is not fixed. It shifts based on safety, experience, and environmental demands, which is why behavior must be understood through the lens of nervous system state rather than compliance or skill alone.
Some of the theoretical foundations of From Roots to Fruit, The Integrated Interoception Tree Model™
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Developmental Construction (Piaget)
→ Skills emerge through access to foundational systems -
Relational Safety & Co-Regulation (Bowlby)
→ Development occurs within safe, attuned relationships -
Embodied Meaning-Making (Damasio)
→ Body signals shape emotion, decision-making, and action
Apply the Model in Practice
Understanding the model is the first step.
Applying it in real-world settings is what creates change.
The From Roots to Fruit™ Complete Clinical Toolkit translates the model into clear, practical tools that support assessment, intervention, and goal planning across settings.
WHAT IT DOES
This toolkit helps you:
✔ Identify patterns of access across the system
✔ Understand readiness, interoception, and participation
✔ Translate assessment findings into meaningful intervention
✔ Develop measurable, participation-based goals
✔ Support children across school, clinic, and home environments
WHAT’S INCLUDED
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Assessment (body-first, access-based)
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Treatment & Goal Planning Pack
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Editable and printable planning templates
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Visual frameworks to support clinical reasoning
Built from the From Roots to Fruit™ model, this toolkit supports the full process from understanding to action.
Neurodevelopmental Stages of Interoception
Interoception develops through overlapping processes of noticing, naming, interpreting, and responding. The stages reflect access to internal signals rather than fixed abilities and may vary across context, development, and state.
Why This Model Matters
The model shifts the focus from behavior to the body.
Rather than asking, “Why won’t the child do this?” we begin to ask, “What is the body experiencing, and what support is needed for access?”
By understanding interoception as the link between internal experience and outward behavior, clinicians, educators, and caregivers can provide support that is responsive, developmentally appropriate, and grounded in nervous system function.
The Book That Inspired Our Work on Interoception
Interoception is the foundation of this model.
The book offers a deeper exploration of how internal body signals support regulation, learning, and participation.
Topics include the insula and interoceptive neurobiology, autonomic nervous system regulation, polyvagal-informed principles, executive function development, emotional awareness, trauma-informed approaches, and regulation-based classroom supports.
Case examples across early childhood through adolescence illustrate how interoceptive differences influence behavior, learning, participation, and executive function. Practical tools include body mapping, visual scales, regulation-matching strategies, graded participation rooted in readiness, autonomic settling practices, and sensory-informed classroom supports.