Sensory processing problems of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background and Aim

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show, in comparison with children without ASD, more sensory processing problems. Sensory information processing refers to the neurological process where the central nervous system, through the senses, receives, processes, and integrates sensory information from the body and environment to form an adequate reaction. Despite the recent attention for sensory processing problems for children with ASD, the diagnostic assessment is not self-evident. Current questionnaires to assess sensory information processing are large and considered a heavy burden. To this end, a shorter version of a sensory symptoms questionnaire named the sensory symptoms list child version (Sk-kv) was developed. This screening instrument can be used in the diagnostic phase to obtain more insight into the sensory information processing of the child. Research on the Sk-kv is currently limited and the aim of the present study is therefore to investigate whether the Sk-kv is an adequate instrument to assess sensory problems in children (ages six to twelve) with ASD.

Method:

The clinical group (n = 60) consists of children with a clinical diagnosis ASD, These children are currently in care at a specialized treatment facility for children and youngsters with (suspicions of) ASD. The control group (n = 93) consists of typical developing children. Their parents were recruited through regular schools and acquaintances of the researchers. The reliability of the Sk-kv will be examined by assessing the internal consistency. We applied the Mann-Whitney U test to assess whether the Sk-kv discriminates between the clinical and norm group on all subscales. Furthermore, a systematic review on sensory information processing has been performed to form a theoretical base for the Sk-kv.

Results:

The internal consistency of the Sk-kv is α = .946. All subscales show a fair to high reliability with the exception of the subscale ‘looking’ ( α = .514). Significant differences (p < .001) were found between the clinical and norm group on all subscales of the Sk-kv.

Results from the systematic review indicate that sensory problems is highly prevalent among children with ASD and that these symptoms have an effect on the development as well as diverse aspects of these children's daily lives.

Conclusions and Recommendations:

The systematic review showed a high prevalence for sensory problems in children with ASD and a diagnostic instrument to assess these symptoms is therefore very important. The Sk-kv discriminates in sensory symptoms for children with and without ASD and seems to be a reliable instrument to assess sensory symptoms in children with ASD. A limitation of the present study is that conclusions regarding validity limited, because a factor analysis has not been carried out. Future studies into the Sk-kv could provide more insight into validity aspects to further build the literature base of the instrument.

Keywords:

Autism spectrum disorder, children, sensory symptoms, sensory symptom list child-version

By: Marijke van Mierlo & Wieke-Jits Braaksma

Supervised by: Anne-Marie Huyghen