Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior
Open Access

Research Article

Sensory Processing and Repetitive Behaviors in Clinical Assessment of Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Magda Di Renzo^*, Federico Bianchi di Castelbianco, Elena Vanadia, Massimiliano Petrillo, Lidia Racinaro and Monica Rea

Institute of Ortofonologia (IdO), Via Salaria, 30-00198-Rome, Italy

*Corresponding Author:

Magda Di Renzo
Institute of Ortofonologia (IdO)
Via Salaria, 30-00198-Rome, Italy
Tel: 0039-068542038
E-mail: m.direnzo@ortofonologia.it

Received Date: Mar 30, 2017; Accepted Date: Apr 19, 2017; Published Date: Apr 27, 2017

Citation: Di Renzo M, Bianchi di Castelbianco F, Vanadia E, Petrillo M, Racinaro L, et al. (2017) Sensory Processing and Repetitive Behaviors in Clinical Assessment of Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Child Adolesc Behav 5: 342. doi: 10.4172/2375-4494.1000342

Copyright: © 2017 Di Renzo M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social communication and presence of restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests, including abnormal reactions to sensory stimuli. Atypical responses to sensory input are increasingly recognized as a common feature of ASDs. In addition to repetitive patterns of behavior, the inclusion of sensory aspects in the diagnosis of autism in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is evidence of the prevalence of sensory dysfunctions in this population. There are several tools investigating these areas, mostly rating scales that, far from wishing to replace other methods, allow a better understanding of the alterations presents and help in defining clinical picture and individual trajectory so improving diagnosis and intervention. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between sensory and repetitive behavioral characteristics of a sample of 50 preschool children with ASD measured with the Short Sensory Profile and the Repetitive Behavior Scales-Revised. Results are consistent with previous researches describing the co-occurrence of repetitive behaviors and sensory response abnormalities in the ASD population. We found evidence to support that the most frequently dysfunctional sensory areas in ASD children regard tactile hypersensitivity, auditory filtering, hyporeactivity and low energy/weak; while among repetitive behaviors the most common are those stereotyped. Furthermore it emerged that direct assessment with ADOS-2, a gold standard test for ASDs, and indirect assessment with questionnaires converged on the same profiles, so suggesting the usefulness to hold together both ecological and structured observations.

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