The implications of this framework for future research, education, and practice are discussed. The clinical utility of the framework now needs to be tested.
The purpose of this letter to the editor is to comment on a recently published paper in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 'An Intervention for Sensory Difficulties in Children with Autism: A Randomized Trial' by Schaaf et al. (2013). The authors are commended for undertaking a randomised clinical trial (RCT) examining the efficacy of occupational therapy using sensory integration (OT/SI). The study complies with many of the recommended standards of RCT's including: (a) detailed eligibility criteria, (b) well-matched experimental and control groups, (c) use of gold-standard instruments to measure the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, (d) the use of functionally relevant outcome measures, (e) fidelity checking, and (f) manualization of the intervention. Additional aspects of rigour that could be considered in subsequent research include: (a) independent blinded measure of observational outcomes, (b) treatment and control interventions of equivalent dose, (c) public access to the manualized treatment guidelines, and (d) the use of a comparison occupational therapy intervention to address the same goals as the OT/SI intervention.
Reported benefits of the program included enhanced psychosocial support and prompting to trial newly learned strategies. Effectiveness may be improved by setting aside time for comentoring in the workplace and better matching of comentors.
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