Abstract
The purposes of the study were to identify whether differences exist between Spanish children with ASD and neurotypical development in relation to Activities of Daily Living (ADL), playfulness, and sensory processing; as well as to confirm whether a relation exists between those areas and sensory processing. Study Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study. Methods: Forty children, 20 with a diagnosis of ASD and 20 with neurotypical development, were recruited. The measurement tools used were the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI), Test of Playfulness (ToP), and Sensory Processing Measure (SPM). Results: The sensory processing of children with ASD were related to decreased functional skills performance of ADL (F = 94.4, p = 0.00) and playfulness (p = 0.00) than neurotypical children; in addition, the problems of sensory reactivity were associated with worse development in these occupational areas (p = 0.00 for both Spearman correlations). Conclusions: Children with ASD present worse performance of functional skills and playfulness than neurotypical ones. Likewise, sensory reactivity is related to the development in the occupational areas.
Highlights
Processing in Children with AutismRecent studios about the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) prevalence, point out big differences depending on the area studied; they agree on it has been detected a significant increase of diagnosed cases of ASD [1,2].The problems of sensory processing in people with ASD are well known [3,4]
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 [5], states that this group presents sensory processing difficulties and sensory integration challenges, which usually affects more than one sensory modality and can include hypo or hyper-reactivity to certain sensory stimulus; in addition, the study of SanzCervera et al [6] pointed out that those problems are present in different contexts
Related to the age of the children and parents, as it is showed in Table 1, there is no differences between both groups
Summary
Processing in Children with AutismRecent studios about the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) prevalence, point out big differences depending on the area studied; they agree on it has been detected a significant increase of diagnosed cases of ASD [1,2].The problems of sensory processing in people with ASD are well known [3,4]. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 [5], states that this group presents sensory processing difficulties and sensory integration challenges, which usually affects more than one sensory modality and can include hypo (when the child needs a great intensity of a certain stimulus to be able to perceive, register and generate an adaptive response) or hyper-reactivity (when the child overreacts to a weak stimulus) to certain sensory stimulus; in addition, the study of SanzCervera et al [6] pointed out that those problems are present in different contexts Along those lines, three types of insufficient sensory processing may be identified in the group of children with ASD: the first is due to incorrectly registered sensory input in the mind of the child [4,7]; another second supposition is because of poor modulation/reactivity of the sensory input [8,9]; and a third reason is due to disinterest in new, proactive and constructive occupations [7,8].
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