Sensory integration therapy (SIT) was originally developed by occupational therapist A. Jean Ayres in the 1970s to help children with sensory-processing difficulties.
[1] Individuals with sensory-processing difficulties often experience delayed or impeded typical behaviors and functioning as a result of interferences in neurological processing and integration of sensory inputs.
[9] It contributes to the understanding of how sensation affects learning, social-emotional development, and neurophysiological processes, such as motor performance, attention, and arousal.
The goal of these sessions is to assist a child in gaining competence in participating in everyday activities in settings such as school, home and extra curriculars.
Children who require more structure are given modified activities that continue to offer freedom of choice in order to foster self-direction (Parham & Mailloux,2015).
Hume and colleagues support the use of Ayres’ Sensory Integration (ASI), making the case for why review of science and evidence should be ongoing.
As the intervention literature has provided more empirical information and as practices have evolved, some of the classifications required reconceptualization and revision of previous definitions.
In an active research area, knowledge does not stand still, and in fact, identification of EBPs should be dynamic, reflecting the growth of knowledge across time (Biglan and Ogden 2019).In their article they clearly state the importance of clearly defining what sensory integration therapy is and what it is not; helping to clarify and delineate the clinical practice reported in their article, from other related approaches based on Ayres’ SI theory.