Response to Pressure as an Indicator of Widespread Sensory Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorders
Maria Teresa Sindelar, Bruno Sales
Sensory and motor difficulties are major components of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Sensorimotor impairment not only contributes to non-social symptoms of the condition, but also plays a key role in the abnormal development of social behaviour in ASD. In search of a quick test for sensory impairment we studied the threshold of pressure responsiveness in ASD and neurotypical children. A sample of 50 children, aged from 3 to 14 years (mean 5.9 yr.) with a diagnosis of ASD according to the clinical criteria of DSM-5 and/or international standard tests such as ADOS, ADI-R and CARS, were tested. The control group was composed of 50 children with neurotypical development in the same age range. The results showed a significantly higher threshold in ASD children with widespread sensory (and motor) impairment linked to high threshold values. We suggest that a comprehensive approach to ASD should always take into account careful sensory and motor evaluation and we propose a simple tool to assess pressure threshold as a first step.
Keywords
Autism Spectrum Disorders, Multiple sensory impairment, Motor impairment, Sensorimotor integration, Pressure test.