Improving Academic Scoresthrough Sensory Integration

Abstract

A group of learning disabled children, matched with a control group for degree and type of sensory integratiie dysfunction, showed greater gains than the control group on academic tests after an intervention program designed to enhance sensory integration. Children with auditory-language problems but without other evident perceptual-motor involvement made significant gains, as did those with more generalized problems. The remedial program, based on understanding how the brain integrates sensations, stressed controlled vestibular and somatosensory stimulation and normalizing brain-stem sensory and motor mechanlsms. Language ws employed for communication purposes only and not as part of the remedial program.