Effectiveness of Sensory-motor Integration Training in Improving Autism Symptoms among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of sensory-motor integration training in improvement of autism symptoms in children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by a combination of repetitive behaviors and deficits in communication and social skills. Sensory integration has a role in developing body perception, selection of concurrent stimuli, and the ability to act in convenience with the environment. Sensory receptors receive all the data from the body. Data flows through the sensory neurons in the central nervous system. Brain promptly analyses, collates associates and integrates the respective sensory signals through neurologic processing. Consequently, motor neurons send a signal to the brain. The body gives a sensory motor response to the signal. The core process elements of sensory integration fidelity include (a) providing sensory opportunities (b) providing just-right challenges, (c) guiding self-organization, (d) creating play context, (e) maximizing child’s success, and (f) ensuring physical safety. These core elements are essential for identifying and structuring authentic sensory integration intervention. Also, sensory integration training (SIT) for children with autism seeks to expose children to different sensory experiences and improve sensory processing. Through this therapy, children will learn to better register and modulate sensations, and make more appropriate and adaptive responses.
This is an A-B follow-up case study. Purposive sampling was used to recruit four participants. The participants participated in 21 sessions of sensory-motor integration training, namely, two weekly session of 45 minutes. Assessment instrument was Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS). GARS consists of four sub-scales, each consisting of 14 items, as follows: 1. Stereotypic behaviors; 2. Communication problems; 3. Social interaction and 4- developmental disorders Visual inspection and Cohen's d effect size were used to analyze the data.
The result of visual inspection indicates that the effectiveness of sensory-motor integration training in improvement of autism ssymptoms, namely, stereotypic behaviors, communication problems, and social interactions. The result of Cohen's d effect size showed large effect size of sensory-motor integration training on stereotypic behaviors, communication problems, and social interactions. Nonetheless, the effect size of sensory-motor integration training in the follow up stage for one of cases was medium.
The results showed that sensory-motor integration training is effective in reducing symptoms of autism (ASD). The trend in the follow-up stage showed that an increase in the number of therapy sessions is useful.