Developmental progress of children with pervasive developmental disorder and/or sensory processing disorder enrolled in a DIR/Floortime therapy group
by Muratidis, Heather, Psy.D., ADLER SCHOOL OF PROFESSIONAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2009, 78 pages; 3374084

Abstract:

A prospective, longitudinal study of twenty children diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) and/or sensory processing disorder (SPD) was conducted at a pediatric therapy clinic. The participants were enrolled in Penguin Playgroups, a DIR/Floortime based developmental play group. They were first assessed during intake and then re-assessed an average of 13.5 months later. The study explored developmental progress after intervention, factors such as age and time spent in intervention, and differences between two ICDL diagnostic categories, regulatory-sensory and neurodevelopmental disorder. The instrument used in the study was the Sensory Profile, a 125 item, five-point Likert scale caregiver questionnaire created by Winnie Dunn designed to measure a child's sensory responses to every day situations. There are three score groupings (factor group, quadrant scores, and expanded cut scores) consisting of 27 scales in all. When scores at Tp1 and Tp2 were compared, statistical significance was found at a < .05 level on two scales, and trends at a < .10 level were found on two scales. Three of these findings moved in the hypothesized directions where one did not. No statistical significance was found when age and time spent in intervention was looked at. Three trends were found when exploring age and one trend was found when exploring time spent in intervention. When investigating the differences between the ICDL diagnostic categories, the neurodevelopmental group moved more toward the typical range of functioning than the regulatory-sensory group. Overall, statistical significance was found on three scales and trends were found on four scales when comparing the two groups mean change scores. There was not enough statistical significance found to support any of the hypotheses in this study. Although the significance and trends that were found generally move in the hypothesized direction, there was not significant change on the majority of the scales. Due to the limited sample size, this study serves as an exploratory study and results cannot be used to generalize to the greater population.

 
AdviserJerry Westermeyer
SchoolADLER SCHOOL OF PROFESSIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
SourceDAI/B 70-09, p. , Dec 2009
Source TypeDissertation
SubjectsSocial psychology; Developmental psychology; Clinical psychology
Publication Number3374084
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