Perfil funcional e sensorial de crianças com autismo: implicações para a terapia ocupacional

Abstract

Introduction. Children with autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their families need the care of a multidisciplinary team and occupational therapy usually is involved, because the child may have difficulties in daily activities such as self-care tasks, play, leisure, social participation and education. Functional performance seems to be related to the sensory profile of the child, however, there is little national research in this area. Goals. Describe the functional and sensory profile of children with autism and analyze the implications for occupational therapy practice. Method. The participants were six children from three to five years whose mothers answered a questionnaire on the history of child development, the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) translated and adapted for use in Brazil, Brazil Economic Classification Criteria, version to Inventory Pediatric Evaluation of Disability (PEDI) and the Sensory Profile. Results. Regarding the functional profile, all children had impaired ability to perform self-care skills and social function and good performance in mobility. The greatest difficulties were in tasks of personal toilet hygiene and dressing. Regarding the sensory profile, most children have typical performance in the auditory, visual and tactile processing, and the vestibular, oral and multisensory processing. As for items modulation, the most common changes were related to body position and movement and sensory and visual input affecting emotional response, whose items most children have changed. The emotional reaction and sensory sensitivity were factors that had problems. Conclusion. The self-care tasks that the children had more difficulty performing require perceptual-sensory, and motor skills praxic. The sensory response can interfere with daily activities, which can be verified by analyzing the data in this study, and these difficulties are also related to the discrimination of different sensory stimuli as the skills of manual dexterity. Thus, when dealing with this population it is necessary that the Occupational Therapist include more specific assessment of motor and process skills protocols so you can get the most complete listing of these children.