Description and definition of the chosen intervention Sensory Integration Therapy (SIT) a form of occupational therapy in which the therapist uses special exercises to strengthen three domains: tactile (sense of touch), vestibular (sense balance) and proprioceptive (sense of where the body and its parts are in space). It is designed to restore effective neurological processing and increase the individual's ability to integrate sensory information by improving the three systems. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The activities involved require the individual to use their more advanced adaptive abilities and encourage them to compensate for their sensory deficits. It may benefit individuals with movement disorders or hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity to sensory input. Hypersensitivity is characterized by intense, negative responses to typical daily life experiences, affecting alertness, attention, social interaction, and level of activity and self-care. Hyposensitivity is characterized by delayed or reduced responses to daily sensory events, which affect the level of alertness, attention, posture, movement, motor coordination and social interaction. The therapy is based on the theory of sensory integration of the occupational therapist and psychologist A. Jean Ayres (ASI). It describes how the brain processes and integrates sensory information from the body and environment that contributes to responses in learning, emotions, and behavior. Dr. Ayres wrote: “Sensory integration is the organization of sensations for use. Our senses give us information about the physical condition of our body and the environment around us. The brain must organize all of our sensations if a person wants to move, learn and behave productively" Children with autism show symptoms that include difficulties processing sensory information, especially texture, sounds, smells, taste, brightness and movement. As a result, they find normal situations overwhelming and can interfere with their daily functions. Sensory integration therapy helps alleviate this difficulty by changing the brain's reactions to sensory information through a variety of carefully selected games. Definition of Intervention to Improve Quality of Life The DSM-5 includes sensory perception disorders as a new diagnostic criterion for autism spectrum disorder, in which a child diagnosed with ASD is prone to experiencing differences in their sensory processing patterns compared to to the expected models. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show symptoms of sensory processing dysfunction, in which the brain has difficulty regulating responses to external stimuli and may use self-stimulation methods to compensate for hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity to inputs sensorial. This manifests itself in repetitive movements that have no specific purpose and often have social, personal and educational implications on the child's daily life, preventing him from carrying out the normal routine of life. Such responses suggest poor sensory integration in the central nervous system and may be the cause of inattention and arousal, which interfere with the child's ability to engage in or learn from activities. It can affect daily activities such as feeding, so a hypersensitivity to different tastes and textures of food can limit a child's food intake. SIT is a commonly used treatment approach for children with ASD. Studies should show thatSIT is effective in reducing self-stimulatory behaviors and increasing functional behaviors such as social interaction and gaming skills. A decrease in self-stimulating behaviors can lead to an increase in attention, which can have a great influence on completing tasks related to academics and self-help. According to Pfeiffer et. al. (2017), the SIT intervention is effective in producing significant decreases in autistic behavior related to social reactivity and significant progress toward individualized goals of sensory processing and regulation, social-emotional functions, and fine motor skills. This is also supported by previous studies (Smith et al., 2005; Watling & Dietz, 2007), whereby children with ASD were assessed on the reduction of their self-stimulatory behaviors after SIT. Reducing self-stimulatory behaviors can improve quality of life by improving the child's attention and engagement in carrying out necessary daily activities. It also helps increase acceptance from peers in their environment. Watling and Dietz (2007) found that engaging behaviors that are often interrupted by unwanted stereotyped movements in four children with ASD improved during a latency period. Another study by Smith et. Al. (2005) found that self-stimulatory behaviors significantly decreased when subjects underwent occupational therapy using sensory integration methods. Although the sample sizes of the studies are small, they show the effectiveness of SIT in real subjects, which suggests that SIT is an individualized therapeutic method that can help regulate self-stimulatory behavior and thus help children with ASD to function better in daily adaptive activities. . Scores on tests measuring sensory processing disorders showed no significant differences. However, measurement issues are often present in studies evaluating children with ASD due to their wide variety of behavioral and developmental levels, which may result in noncompliance or unresponsiveness. This suggests that the test scores obtained may differ from their actual level of functioning, which makes the test scores quite unreliable. This also demonstrates that SIT is an effective intervention method to help children with ASD cope with sensory difficulties, but does not reduce the child's abilities. hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity to sensory input. The ability to cope with such sensory difficulties can help regulate the child's behaviors, helping him or her to perform daily functions and school performance with less difficulty. Often, stereotyped behaviors in children with ASD are not socially accepted by neurotypical people. It is perceived as inappropriate behavior and can cause a barrier to communication and acceptance in mainstream society. The reduction in stereotyped behaviors shows that the ability to self-regulate provides a better quality of life by ensuring that children with ASD can complete functional tasks and integrate into their environments through interaction with others without any interference. The research behind the intervention Sensory integration theories were originally developed by A. Jean Ayres to focus on the neurological processing of sensory information. It is based on the understanding that our senses provide us with information about the interaction between our body and the environment, and that our brain must organize that information and respond productively. According to Ayres (1973), SI is necessary for a person to have proprioception and be able to carry out activities that require planningand attention to the environment and language skills. An impairment causes disturbances in the vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile systems, resulting in difficulties in daily activities. Problems with sensory integration are often present in individuals with disabilities such as cerebral palsy and ASD. Although SIT is a widely used intervention to regulate sensory dysfunction in children with ASD, little empirical evidence exists to demonstrate its effectiveness. Most studies had various limitations, including methodological limitations and small sample sizes with inadequate experimental controls. Some examples of methodological limitations are the inability to use dependent measures to establish reliability, apply appropriate statistical techniques, and incorporate control groups. Small sample sizes with inadequate experimental controls suggest that it is difficult to generalize the results. Of the numerous studies conducted to measure the effectiveness of SIT, only one randomized controlled trial (RCT) methodology incorporated scientifically rigorous methodology. A group of children with ASD was randomly divided into a SIT group and a control group that received instruction in fine motor skills. Information gathered from teachers and parents concluded that the SIT group made greater progress toward individualized intervention goals than a control group. The group that received SIT also had parents who reported a reduction in ASD symptoms on a parent questionnaire assessing such symptoms. However, both groups did not produce different results on questionnaires assessing sensory processing after receiving SIT. This study shows that SIT can help reduce ASD symptoms that may not be related to our main discussion, sensory integration therapy. Other randomized trials have also failed to demonstrate the effectiveness of SIT on sensory integration dysfunction. Overall, Arendt et.al. (1988) also concluded that SIT has limited scientific support in its effectiveness. Despite this lack of supporting evidence, sensory integration-based activities continue to be recommended by occupational therapists and are used by educators in public schools. Interventionists have been reported to perceive that children show improvements as a result of sensory integration therapy or that positive changes in behavior are attributed to sensory integration strategies. Critical Thinking and Research Evaluation Most research on SIT aimed to measure the effectiveness of SIT on alleviating symptoms of sensory integration dysfunction. However, most research has found that SIT is not effective in alleviating the symptoms of sensory integration dysfunction, but is effective in reducing the symptoms of ASD. This may be a contributing factor to the popularity of SIT. Smith and Bryan (1999) used a single-subject AB design to evaluate the effects of SIT on the behaviors of preschool children with ASD or pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), which include engagement, play, and social behaviors, and they found that SIT increased gaming behavior and engagement in 3 out of 5 participants. However, generalization of gaming skills was lacking. Schilling and Schwarts (2004) evaluated the use of a therapy ball for children with ASD and found greater engagement when the ball was used as an alternative form of sitting, compared to a chair, bench, or carpeted floor. The two studies show that SIT is an effective method of intervention for ASD-like symptomsengagement, play, and social skills, which are not directly related to sensory integration dysfunction. There is research showing that sensory integration dysfunction amplifies social deficits. Hilton et. al (2010) found a strong relationship between sensory reactivity and social reactivity, regardless of the child's cognitive functions. This suggests that sensory integration dysfunction is an indirect cause of ASD behaviors, which further suggests that the effectiveness of SIT in reducing ASD behaviors may be its ability to regulate sensory dysfunctions. Another behavior linked to sensory dysfunction in autism is restricted repetitive behaviors. It has been suggested that these inappropriate behaviors represent an attempt to relieve stress produced by difficulty processing sensory information. There is growing evidence of the relationship between sensory dysfunction and limited repetitive behaviors. Chen et. al. (2009) found a significant relationship between the frequency and intensity of routine behavior (using the Childhood Routines Inventory) and tactile, visual, and auditory sensitivity in 29 children with Asperger syndrome. Joosten and Bundy (2010) also found that children with autism and intellectual disability were significantly more sensitive to sensations and used greater means to avoid them than children with intellectual disability alone. This demonstrates that sensory dysfunction contributes greatly to the stereotypical behaviors of children with ASD. However, SIT does not directly alleviate the sensory issues that children with ASD face, which shows the limitations of the therapy. Educators and therapists working in public schools are currently expected to use “evidence-based” practices. However, the lack of supporting evidence has made SIT a controversial topic among researchers. SIT is used for its effectiveness in reducing ASD behaviors which greatly improves the lives of these children in aspects of daily functioning and academics. Since this is an effective method, it should be a topic that should garner more research despite the limitations it faces. Betty Hasselkus, former editor of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy, wrote that the best evidence can be determined from quasi-experimental designs that include single-subject designs. The Council for Exceptional Children's Task Force on Quality Indicators for Special Education Research also agrees that single-subject designs with a set of criteria can be used to determine the effectiveness of a practice. Single-subject research conducted by Bonggat and Hall (2010) shows that sensory integration activities had no better effect on participants' ability to stay on task and reduce the number of disruptive behaviors than control activities. Attention. All three participants chosen for this study had been prescribed “sensory diets” by an occupational therapist for sensory defensiveness and attention difficulties, but there was no clear benefit to starting the day with a “sensory diet” compared to an attention control task. Future Directions One challenge faced by many in evaluating the effectiveness of SIT has been the ability to measure the progress of sensory integration dysfunction in children with ASD. Due to the nature of their behavior, it is difficult for them to provide consistent answers on standardized tests. The studies implemented several assessment tools, including standardized tests, structured observations, or interviews with parents and.