Sensory processing in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Relationship with non-verbal IQ, autism severity and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder symptomatology.
Sensory issues forecast autism severity everywhere, but forecast ADHD inattention mainly at home—so start your sensory plan at home when attention is the target.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Sanz-Cervera et al. (2015) asked parents and teachers to fill out sensory checklists about kids with autism.
They also scored each child’s autism severity, IQ, and ADHD symptoms.
The team ran numbers to see which sensory quirks predicted which problems, at home and at school.
What they found
Sensory issues predicted autism severity in both places—home and school.
The same sensory scores only predicted ADHD inattention at home, not at school.
Non-verbal IQ did not predict either symptom set once sensory data were in the model.
How this fits with other research
Rossow et al. (2021) extends this picture to preschoolers. They show sensory seeking links to externalizing problems in all autistic toddlers, while sensory hyper-reactivity links to internalizing problems only in kids who speak few or no words.
Austin et al. (2015) seems to disagree. In youth with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, lower coding scores predict higher autism severity. The clash disappears when you notice they studied a genetic syndrome, not idiopathic autism.
Murphy et al. (2014) came first. They found caregiver-reported autism symptoms are driven mostly by the diagnosis itself. Pilar adds sensory processing as another clear predictor, sharpening your assessment lens.
Why it matters
You already screen for sensory red flags. This paper tells you to weight home reports more heavily when ADHD inattention is the concern. If a child shows sound or touch issues at home, plan for attention supports there first. At school, focus on sensory supports tied to core autism features instead.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The main objective of this study was to analyze in a sample of children with ASD the relationship between sensory processing, social participation and praxis impairments and some of the child's characteristics, such as non-verbal IQ, severity of ASD symptoms and the number of ADHD symptoms (inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity), both in the home and main-classroom environments. Participants were the parents and teachers of 41 children with ASD from 5 to 8 years old (M=6.09). They completed the Sensory Processing Measure (SPM) to evaluate sensory processing, social participation and praxis; the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS-2) to evaluate autism severity; and a set of items (the DSM-IV-TR criteria) to evaluate the number of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms in the child. Non-verbal IQ - measured by the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices Test - did not show a relationship with any of the SPM variables. The SPM variables were significant predictors of autism severity and had similar weights in the two environments. In the case of ADHD symptoms, the SPM variables had a greater weight in the home than in the classroom environment, and they were significant predictors of both inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity - especially inattention - only in the family context. The moderate association between inattention and auditory processing found in the main-classroom suggests the possible utility of certain measures aimed to simplify any classroom's acoustic environment.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2015 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.07.031