A Complementary Sensory Tool for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Background: Sensory integration (SI) issues are widely described in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), impacting in their daily life and occupations. To improve their quality of life and occupational performance, we need to improve clinical and educational evaluation and intervention processes. We aim to develop a tool for measuring SI issues for Spanish children and adolescents with ASD diagnosis, to be used as a complementary tool to complete the Rivière’s Autism Spectrum Inventory, a widely used instrument in Spanish speaking places to describe the severity of ASD symptoms, recently updated with a new sensory scale with three dimensions. Methods: 458 Spanish participants complemented the new questionnaire, initially formed by 73 items with a 1–5 Likert scale. Results: The instrument finally was composed of 41 items grouped in three factors: modulation disorders (13 items), discrimination disorders (13 items), and sensory-based motor disorders (15 items). The goodness-of-fit indices from factor analyses, reliability, and the analysis of the questionnaire’s classification capability offered good values. Conclusions: The new questionnaire shows good psychometric properties and seems to be a good complementary tool to complete new the sensory scale in the Rivière’s Autism Spectrum Inventory.