This study aimed to find out the impact of Group Sensory Integrative Intervention for motor skills and play behaviors of the children with autism spectrum disorder. The study was conducted at B kindergarten located in Gyeongsan-si, Gyungsangbuk-do, So...
This study aimed to find out the impact of Group Sensory Integrative Intervention for motor skills and play behaviors of the children with autism spectrum disorder. The study was conducted at B kindergarten located in Gyeongsan-si, Gyungsangbuk-do, South Korea from December 2012 to March 2013. Participants were ten children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder who met the inclusion criteria, and they were divided into two group of an equal size. Intervention period was seven seeks in total and during that time, the test group participants received the Group Sensory Integrative Intervention two times per week in addition to the traditional occupational therapy program. Conversely, participants of the control group received the traditional occupational therapy intervention program only. Oseretsky Motor Skill Test compared their motor skills pre and post the intervention; the Preschool Play Behavior Scale(PPBS) compared play behaviors of those two groups. Mann-whitney U test was conducted to compare motor skills and play behaviors of participants of two groups at baseline.
This study found that, first, the motor skills of the test group to whom applied the Group Sensory Integrative Intervention significantly improved compared to the control group with the traditional occupational therapy program only(p<.05), Secondly, the play behaviors of the intervention group also significantly improved than those of the control group(p< .05) Such findings would have an implication for practice when confirmed through studies with larger sample sizes. Ways to explore these possibilities would benefit occupational therapy practice for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and should be pursued with rigor and caution in the following studies Endeavors to develop effective Group Sensory Integrative Intervention programs would be required in those studies.