Sensory Processing and Occupational Participation

ABSTRACT

Children with atypical sensory integration have difficulty responding to the processing and/or organization of sensory information, this disability affects functional participation in routines and activities of daily living. Participation is defined as involvement in life situations, it is essential to promote life experiences and the development of sensorimotor, cognitive, and social skills. Improving these skills, in turn, allows children to fully participate in age-appropriate activities and occupations. This study aimed to investigate the putative association between sensory processing and occupational participation in children with neurotypical development. Parents or caregivers of 186 children, aged between 6 and 10 years old, completed the Sensory Profile Caregiver Questionnaires (SPCQ) and the Participation in Childhood Occupations Questionnaire (PICO-Q). Surprisingly, 80 children (43%) presented atypical sensory integration. This sub-group presented several associations between the SPCQ and the areas evaluated by PICO-Q, suggesting an association between sensory processing and occupational participation. We suggest that it is important to carry out screenings for sensory integration in preschool children, to promote better occupational participation in school-aged children.

KEYWORDS:

• Sensory integration
• sensory processing
• occupational participation
• school-aged children

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the kind participation of all the volunteers in this research. Finally, we would like to thank Cláudia Ribeiro da Silva and Élia Silva Pinto for their generous analyses and conceptual suggestions, respectively.

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Disclosure Statement

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Data Availability Statement

Data openly available at https://www.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XHN53 and at url: https://osf.io/xhn53/?view_only=31d3655410f1445faa9cc29fcadb7f17

Ethics Approval

Approval was obtained from the Local University Ethics Committee. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the project [UIDB/04279/2020 to AMA].