Using Occupational Therapy to Help Children with Sensory Processing Difficulties

An ambulance rushes past with its siren blaring, a friend touches your arm when you meet on the street, or a strobe light blinks as you walk past a store. Most people filter out these everyday occurrences without noticing them, but they can send a child with sensory processing difficulties running.

Researchers at Jefferson College of Health Professions (JCHP) want to understand why sensory stimulation impacts some children more than others. In 2002, Roseann Schaaf, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, Associate Professor, Vice Chairman and Director of Graduate Studies in JCHP’s Department of Occupational Therapy, opened a "space ship lab" where she conducts sensory integration research with children. Ultimately, she wants to help these children and their families lead more meaningful lives.

The "space ship" is a room with the solar system painted on the walls and a pretend control panel where the child sits. The child is wired to a computer through small finger and chest pads, and once he or she is comfortable, the computer measures heart rate responses and electrodermal activity (sweat gland activity) as the child smells wintergreen oil, is tickled by a feather, looks at a series of blinking lights, listens to an audio tape of a siren and is tipped back slowly in the chair.

"We are trying to understand the basis of why these children respond atypically to sensation and its relationship to engagement in daily activities," Dr. Schaaf explains. "This knowledge will help us develop and test treatment strategies aimed at reducing abnormal responses to sensation that will help children play, learn, and participate in childhood activities."

When the lab opened five years ago, subjects included children with autism and so-called typically developing children. So far, the research shows that there are physiological differences in how children with autism respond to sensory stimulation. "The children with autism respond differently," Teal Benevides, MS, OTR/L, the lab coordinator, explains. "They are not using their nervous systems to help them cope with sensations."

Benevides, a graduate of Jefferson’s occupational therapy program, has worked with the lab since 2002, when she was a student. "I really want to know why the children respond in this way," she says. "We need more research to understand why some children aren’t able to function in their environment like their peers. There is no true diagnosis in the medical community. It’s important that we understand what is going on in these children’s nervous systems."

The sensory integrative (SI) approach is commonly used by occupational therapists to help children with sensory processing disorder. Benevides explains that with this approach, OTs work on actually changing the child’s nervous system so that they can better cope with environmental challenges, such as everyday sensations.

Not all children with atypical responses to sensation have autism. Severe reactions to sensation are also seen in some children with attention deficit disorders, developmental delays, or children with no other diagnosis. That’s why the researchers added children with sensory processing difficulties to the subject pool last year, with help from Wallace Research Foundation funds. These are children who may over- or under-respond to light, sound, or touch.

Benevides recently returned from a week at the Pediatric Therapy Network in Torrance, CA, where she conducted the same research with children at a similar lab there. Back in Philadelphia, the research team is recruiting research subjects to continue the project. They are seeking children age 5 to 8 with sensory processing difficulties, children age 5 to 12 with autism, typically developing children age 5 to 12, and young adults between 18 and 30. If you would like more information about participating, contact the lab at 215-503-5709 or visit http://www.jefferson.edu/jchp/ot/silab.cfm.

The Sensory Integration lab is housed within Jefferson College of Health Professions, an integral part of one of the nation’s first academic health centers, Thomas Jefferson University, which also includes Jefferson Medical College and Jefferson College of Graduate Studies. JCHP has three schools: a School of Health Professions (consisting of Departments of Bioscience Technologies, General Studies, Couple and Family Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, and Radiologic Sciences), a School of Nursing, and a School of Pharmacy (scheduled to start in fall 2008).

Media Only Contact:
Jane Clinton
215-503-9865
jane.clinton@jefferson.edu

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