Ayres Sensory Integration® for Addressing Play in Autistic Children: A Multiple-Baseline Examination

Abstract

Play is an area of difficulty for autistic children, and occupational therapy practitioners need evidence to guide interventions to improve play for this population. Ayres Sensory Integration® (ASI) intervention has not yet been studied for its impact on play outcomes. To examine the impact of ASI intervention on play types in autistic children. Nonconcurrent, multiple-baseline design across subjects. Outpatient occupational therapy clinic in New England. Three autistic children, ages 5, 6, and 6 yr. Twenty-four ASI sessions. Frequency of play type was coded using partial interval coding. Progress monitoring used Goal Attainment Scaling. All three participants demonstrated changes in the frequency of specific types of play, but changes varied among them. Findings suggest that ASI intervention may alter a child's patterns of play. What This Article Adds: This study is the first to examine the impact of ASI on play and the third that documents the feasibility of single-subject research for studying ASI. If confirmed in future studies, ASI could become an evidence-based intervention for improving play, an important outcome for autistic children and the profession of occupational therapy. Positionality Statement: This article uses the identity-first language autistic people. This nonableist language describes their strengths and abilities and is a conscious decision. This language is favored by autistic communities and self-advocates and has been adopted by health care professionals and researchers (Bottema-Beutel etal., 2021; Kenny etal., 2016).