Background: Autism is a widespread developmental disorder that occurs mostly among children. Children with autism are prone to problematic behaviors due to their deficiencies in language communication and social development. Thus, children with a high degree of autism suffer lower life satisfaction. Moreover, sensory integration dysfunction is closely related to autism. Therefore, the effect of Sensory Integration Training (SIT) on the behaviors and quality of life of children with autism was explored in this study.
Subjects and methods: From September 2017 to December 2018, 108 patients from Fuzhou Fourth Hospital and Xiangtan Fifth Hospital were included in the intervention group (group A) and the control group (group B), with 54 members in each group. The 54 members in group B, with an average age of 5.18±2.94, received routine treatment. In addition to the same routine treatment, the members in group B also received sensory integration training and physical exercise intervention, which lasted for three months. The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) and Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) were used before and after the intervention experiment to evaluate the curative effect.
Results: After the treatment, statistically significant differences were observed in the CARS and ABC scores (P<0.05); the total effective rate was 86.11% in group A and 64.10% in group B. The difference in the CARS score was statistically significant (P<0.05), whereas the difference in the ABC score was also statistically significant (P<0.05). In general, the difference in CARS is statistically significant. Specifically, group A is better than group B, t=3.492, df=73, and bilateral P=0.001<0.01.
Conclusions: SIT intervention had a certain effect on autism and is of great value for the future development of SIT courses or intervention programs for children with autism.