Neurology Letters (Jul 2024)

An investigation into the social and behavioral interactions of kids with autism and their perspectives on the topic of sensory training

  • AmirHossein Montazeri Ghahjavarestani,
  • Elahe Haghighat-Manesh,
  • Hanieh Atashpanjeh,
  • Arezou Behfar,
  • Simin Zeynali,
  • Zahra Ghahri Lalaklou

DOI
https://doi.org/10.61186/nl.3.3.5
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 2
pp. 5 – 12

Abstract

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Autism spectrum disorder is a type of neurodevelopmental disorder, so this disorder is characterized by severe impairment in social interactions, poor communication skills, and stereotyped behaviors. Furthermore, we obtained the imaging data from the ABIDE II database in order to investigate the association between total brain volume and Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2) in autism. The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of sensory integration exercises on social interactions and stereotyped behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder. For this purpose, a semi-experimental design of pre-test-post-test type was implemented with experimental and control groups. The statistical population of the research included 5-12-year-old students with autism spectrum disorder in 2023. Using the purposeful sampling method, 26 people were selected from them and were randomly placed in two experimental and control groups (13 people in each group). The experimental group received sensory integration intervention for 12 sessions, three days a week and each session lasted 45 minutes, while the control group did not receive any intervention. To collect data, before and after the intervention, the revised scale of repetitive behaviors and the social interaction questionnaire were used. The data was analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance by SPSS 25 software. The findings of the research showed that after the intervention, there was a significant difference in the scores of stereotyped behaviors (0.001) and social interactions (0.015) between the two groups. In general, it was found that sensory integration exercises reduce stereotyped behaviors and improve social interactions. Therefore, it is suggested to use sensory integration exercises to improve social interactions and reduce stereotyped behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder.

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