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 areas – tactile (sense of touch) , vestibular (sense of balance) and proprioceptive (sensation of the position of the body and its parts in space). It is designed to restore effective neurological processing and increase the individual's ability to integrate sensory information by improving all three systems. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The activities involved require the individual to use their most advanced coping skills and encourage them to compensate for their sensory deficits. It may benefit people with movement disorders or hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity to sensory input. Hypersensitivity is characterized by intense and negative responses to typical experiences of daily life, affecting alertness, attention, social interaction and level of activity and self-care. Hyposensitivity is characterized by delayed or reduced responses to daily sensory events, affecting the level of alertness, attention, posture, movement, motor coordination and social interaction. The therapy is based on the sensory integration theory of 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 learning, emotional, and behavioral responses. Dr. Ayres wrote: “Sensory integration is the organization of sensations for use. Our senses give us information about the physical conditions of our body and the environment around us. The brain must organize all of our sensations if a person is to move, learn, and behave productively. » Children with autism have symptoms that include difficulty processing sensory information, particularly textures, sounds, smells, taste, brightness and movement. As a result, they find usual situations overwhelming which can interfere with their daily functions. Sensory integration therapy helps alleviate this difficulty by changing the brain's responses 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 disorders, in which a child diagnosed with ASD is likely to experience differences in their patterns of sensory processing compared to expected patterns. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit 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 stress. hyposensitivity to sensory input. 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 them from leading their normal life. Such responses suggest poor sensory integration in the central nervous system and could be the cause of inattention and arousal that interfere with the child's ability to engage in or learn activities. This can affect daily activities like eating, where hypersensitivity to different tastes andFood textures can restrict the child's food intake. SIT is a commonly used therapeutic approach for children with ASD. Studies have shown that SIT is effective in reducing self-stimulatory behaviors and increasing functional behaviors such as social interaction and play skills. A decrease in self-stimulatory behaviors can lead to an increase in attention, which can have a great influence on the accomplishment of tasks related to academia and self-help. According to Pfeiffer et. al. (2017), SIT intervention is effective in producing a significant decrease in autistic behaviors related to social responsiveness and significant progress toward individualized goals in sensory processing and regulation, socio-emotional functions, and fine motor skills. This is also supported by previous studies (Smith et al., 2005; Watling & Dietz, 2007), in which children with ASD were assessed on the reduction of their self-stimulatory behaviors after an STI. Reducing self-stimulatory behaviors can improve quality of life by improving the child's attention and engagement in completing necessary daily tasks. This also helps increase peer acceptance in their environment. Watling and Dietz (2007) found that engagement behaviors that are often disrupted by unwanted stereotyped movements in four children with ASD improved over a latency period. Another study by Smith et. (2005) found that self-stimulatory behaviors decreased significantly when subjects underwent occupational therapy using sensory integration methods. Even though the sample sizes of the studies are small, they show the effectiveness of ITS in real subjects, suggesting that ITS is an individualized therapy method that can help regulate self-stimulatory behavior and thus helping children with ASD function better in everyday adaptive tasks. . Scores on tests measuring sensory processing disorders did not show significant differences. However, measurement issues are often present in studies assessing children with ASD due to their wide variety of behavioral and developmental levels, which can lead to noncompliance or lack of response. This suggests that the test results obtained may differ from their actual level of functioning, making the test results quite unreliable. This also shows that SIT is an effective intervention method to help children with ASD cope with sensory difficulties, but does not reduce the child's sensory abilities. hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity to sensory input. The ability to cope with such sensory difficulties can help regulate the child's behaviors, helping them perform daily functions and academic performance with less difficulty. Often, stereotypical behaviors in children with ASD are not socially accepted by neurotypical people. This is seen as inappropriate behavior and can be a barrier to communication and acceptance in wider society. The reduction in stereotyped behaviors shows that the ability to self-regulate ensures a better quality of life by ensuring that children with ASD can perform functional tasks and blend into their environment through interaction with others without any interference. Research behind the intervention Sensory integration theories are initially developed by A. JeanAyres to focus on the neurological processing of sensory information. It is based on the understanding that our senses give us information about the interaction between our body and the environment and that our brain must organize this information and respond productively. According to Ayres (1973), SI is necessary for a person to have proprioception and perform activities that require planning and attention to the environment and language abilities. Impairment results in disruptions to the vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile systems, leading to difficulty in daily activities. Sensory integration issues are often present in people with disabilities such as cerebral palsy and ASD. Although SIT is a widely used intervention to regulate sensory dysfunctions in children with ASD, there is little empirical evidence supporting 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, to apply appropriate statistical techniques, and to incorporate control groups. Small sample sizes and inadequate experimental controls suggest that it is difficult to generalize the results. Of the many studies conducted to measure the effectiveness of SIT, only a randomized controlled trial (RCT) methodology incorporated scientifically rigorous methodology. A group of children with ASD was randomly divided into an SIT group and a control group that received fine motor skills instruction. Information collected from teachers and parents concluded that the SIT group made more progress toward individualized intervention goals compared to a control group. The group that received SIT also had parents reporting a reduction in ASD symptoms on a parent questionnaire assessing these symptoms. However, the two 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 might not be related to our main discussion, sensory integration therapy. Other RCTs have also not shown the effectiveness of SIT on sensory integration dysfunction. Overall, Arendt et.al. (1988) also concluded that SIT has limited scientific support for its effectiveness. Despite this lack of supporting evidence, sensory integration-based activities continue to be recommended by occupational therapists and are used by public school educators. It has been reported that interventionists perceive that children show improvement with sensory integration-based therapy or that positive changes in behavior are attributed to sensory integration strategies. Critical Thinking and Research Evaluation Most research on SIT has aimed to measure the effectiveness of SIT in alleviating symptoms of sensory integration dysfunction. However, most research has shown that SIT is not effective in alleviating the symptoms of sensory integration dysfunction, but is effective in reducing the symptoms of ASD. This could 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,and social behaviors, and found that SIT increased play behavior and engagement in 3 out of 5 participants. However, generalization of play skills was lacking. Schilling and Schwarts (2004) evaluated the use of a therapy ball for children with ASD and found higher engagement when the ball was used as an alternative form of seating, compared to a chair, bench or a carpet. Both studies show that ITS is an effective intervention method for ASD symptoms such as engagement, play, and social skills, which are not directly related to sensory integration dysfunction. Research shows that dysfunctional sensory integration amplifies social deficits. Hilton and. al (2010) discovered a close relationship between sensory responsiveness and social responsiveness, independent of the child's cognitive functions. This suggests that sensory integration dysfunction is an indirect cause of ASD behaviors, further suggesting that the effectiveness of SIT in decreasing ASD behaviors may be its ability to regulate sensory dysfunctions. Another behavior linked to sensory dysfunction in autism is restriction of 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 restricted repetitive behaviors. Chen et. al. (2009) found a significant relationship between frequency and intensity of routine behaviors (using the Childhood Routines Inventory) and tactile, visual, and auditory sensitivity in 29 children with Asperger's 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 sensations than children with intellectual disability alone. This shows that sensory dysfunction contributes greatly to the stereotyping behaviors of children with ASD. However, SIT does not directly alleviate the sensory issues faced by children with ASD, showing 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 because of its effectiveness in reducing ASD-related behaviors, which significantly 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 be the subject of more research despite the limitations encountered. Betty Hasselkus, former editor of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy, wrote that the best evidence can be determined by quasi-experimental designs, including single-subject designs. The Council for Exceptional Children's Working Group 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 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 per relation to attention control activities. The three.