Abstract:
Objectives: Among the most important problems of autistic children are the behavioral disorders due to sensory processing deficiency, which are typically reflected in behaviors such as impulsivity, attention and concentration disorders, undesirable emotional reactions, sensory seeking in the form of stereotype behaviors, self-injury and self-stimulating. The present study aimed at exploring the effects of a combined vestibular and tactile stimulation on behavioral abnormalities resulting from sensory processing deficiency in autistic children of an age of 3-13 years old. Method: The study was an experimental research using a pretest-posttest design with a control group. Twelve autistic children of an average age of 8.4 year whose sensory disorders had been verified through the Winnie Dunn’s Sensory Assessment Questionnaire, were randomly selected from two school for behavioral disorders. They were randomly grouped in two groups of 6 subjects, namely the Test Group and the Control Group. Then, participants in the experimental group received vestibular and tactile stimulation for 36 sessions, 3 sessions a week, each session of 45 minutes. Results: The subjectsin the control group were under the school’s regular schedule. After intervention, they were assessed again and the collected data obtained were analyzed through Multivariable Covariance Analysis using the SPSS software, version 20. Discussion: According to the findings obtained, the vestibular and tactile stimulation significantly decreases the behavioral abnormalities of autistic children afflicted with sensory processing deficiency (p<0.01). Using the vestibular and tactile stimulation can be taken as an effective method in the treatment of autistic children.
Machine summary:
Effects of Vestibular and Tactile Stimulation on Behavioral Disorders due to Sensory Processing Deficiency in 3-13 Years Old Iranian Autistic Children Elham Ghanavati; Mohammadreza Zarbakhsh* Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon Branch, Tonekabon, Iran Hojjat Allah Haghgoo, PhD.
The present study aimed at exploring the effects of a combined vestibular and tactile stimulation on behavioral abnormalities resulting from sensory processing deficiency in autistic children of an age of 3-13 years old.
The results of the MANCOVA Test for investigating the effect of touch and vestibular sensory stimulations on the combinational variable, namely the behavioral abnormalities resulting from sensory processing dysfunction, have been reported in Table (2).
Discussion The results indicated that the stimulation of touch and vestibular senses is effective on the improvement of behavioral disorders resulting from sensory processing dysfunction in autistic children.
In line with such findings, the results of the present research also show that making use of touch and vestibular stimulations can lead to an improvement of behaviors resulting from sensory seeking abnormality in autistic children.
Watling and Deitz (10) have reported a considerable effectiveness of the application of Ayres’s sensory integration procedure on the improvement of undesirable behaviors and social communication of 4 autistic children where the treatment have been provided both at home and in session therapies.
Concluding Remarks - Making use of sensory stimulations specially touch and vestibular sensory stimulations can be effective on an improvement of behavioral abnormalities of autistic children, a decrease in their sensitivities and increase in their levels of attention.