In this qualitative research study the focus is on the use of sensory integration strategies with children who have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Three respondents specialising in sensory integration in the Durbanville area were involved. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the respondents in order to gain knowledge on the use of sensory integration strategies with children who have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder by a professional other than an occupational therapist. After permission had been obtained, the interviews were captured on video tape and transcribed for use in the empirical study. Seven themes were identified from the interviews and a literature control was done with each of the themes. The researcher did not attempt to generalise the results of the research, but tried to reflect on the information that the respondents provided. The researcher summarised the findings of the empirical study and made recommendations. / Social Work / M. Diac (Play Therapy)

<p>Children with autism typically present with sensory processing difficulties that affect their ability to relate to people. This qualitative study focused on exploring the sensory processing of children with autism and their mothers, using a frame of reference of sensory integration theory. The purpose of the study was to help mothers gain knowledge and understanding into their own sensory processing so that they could develop a better understanding of their child&rsquo / s sensory processing in order to facilitate better mother-child relationships. An evaluation tool, the Sensory Profiles by Dunn (1999) and the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile by Brown &amp / Dunn (2002) was used as the instrument for gathering information on sensory processing. The population consisted of ten sets of mothers and their children with autism who attend Vera School for Learners with Autism. The Sensory&nbsp / rofiles was completed to investigate the phenomenological issues regarding the sensory modulation aspects of the parent-child relationship. Each mother received individual feedback on their own and their child&rsquo / s sensory processing. Two focus groups were then conducted with the mothers to determine the value of the information gained from the&nbsp / rofiles. Data consisted of two audio taped feedback from the focus group. Data was analysed for emerging themes. The three major themes that emerged were, (a) You realize&nbsp / ow similar you are to your child, (b) I also have needs (c) They walk away and leave you with this wreck of a child. The findings of the study suggest that an understanding of&nbsp / ensory processing can influence the mother-child relationship positively.</p>

<p>Children with autism typically present with sensory processing difficulties that affect their ability to relate to people. This qualitative study focused on exploring the sensory processing of children with autism and their mothers, using a frame of reference of sensory integration theory. The purpose of the study was to help mothers gain knowledge and understanding into their own sensory processing so that they could develop a better understanding of their child&rsquo / s sensory processing in order to facilitate better mother-child relationships. An evaluation tool, the Sensory Profiles by Dunn (1999) and the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile by Brown &amp / Dunn (2002) was used as the instrument for gathering information on sensory processing. The population consisted of ten sets of mothers and their children with autism who attend Vera School for Learners with Autism. The Sensory&nbsp / rofiles was completed to investigate the phenomenological issues regarding the sensory modulation aspects of the parent-child relationship. Each mother received individual feedback on their own and their child&rsquo / s sensory processing. Two focus groups were then conducted with the mothers to determine the value of the information gained from the&nbsp / rofiles. Data consisted of two audio taped feedback from the focus group. Data was analysed for emerging themes. The three major themes that emerged were, (a) You realize&nbsp / ow similar you are to your child, (b) I also have needs (c) They walk away and leave you with this wreck of a child. The findings of the study suggest that an understanding of&nbsp / ensory processing can influence the mother-child relationship positively.</p>

In this qualitative research study the focus is on the use of sensory integration strategies with children who have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Three respondents specialising in sensory integration in the Durbanville area were involved. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the respondents in order to gain knowledge on the use of sensory integration strategies with children who have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder by a professional other than an occupational therapist. After permission had been obtained, the interviews were captured on video tape and transcribed for use in the empirical study. Seven themes were identified from the interviews and a literature control was done with each of the themes. The researcher did not attempt to generalise the results of the research, but tried to reflect on the information that the respondents provided. The researcher summarised the findings of the empirical study and made recommendations. / Social Work / M. Diac (Play Therapy)

Magister Scientiae (Occupational Therapy) - MSc(OT) / Children with autism typically present with sensory processing difficulties that affect their ability to relate to people. This qualitative study focused on exploring the sensory processing of children with autism and their mothers, using a frame of reference of sensory integration theory. The purpose of the study was to help mothers gain knowledge and understanding into their own sensory processing so that they could develop a better understanding of their child's sensory processing in order to facilitate better mother-child relationships. An evaluation tool, the Sensory Profiles by Dunn (1999) and the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile by Brown & Dunn (2002) was used as the instrument for gathering information on sensory processing. The population consisted of ten sets of mothers and their children with autism who attend Vera School for Learners with Autism. The Sensory Profiles was completed to investigate the phenomenological issues regarding the sensory modulation aspects of the parent-child relationship. Each mother received individual feedback on their own and their child's sensory processing. Two focus groups were then conducted with the mothers to determine the value of the information gained from the profiles. Data consisted of two audio taped feedback from the focus group. Data was analysed for emerging themes. The three major themes that emerged were, (a) You realize how similar you are to your child, (b) I also have needs (c) They walk away and leave you with this wreck of a child. The findings of the study suggest that an understanding of sensory processing can influence the mother-child relationship positively. / South Africa

Developmental Dyspraxia and Sensory Modulation Dysfunction are Sensory Integration Disorders that are widely known to occupational therapists practicing in the paediatric occupational therapy field. These disorders have been the subject of numerous research studies that have managed to clarify and explain relations of these disorders with sensory processing as well as their prevalence in different diagnostic groups. Such a clarified relationship is between Developmental Dyspraxia and Sensory Discrimination, while Sensory Modulation Dysfunction is reported to occur in various diagnostic groups. Developments over the past decade in the field of Sensory Integration proposed that Developmental Dyspraxia and Sensory Modulation Dysfunction be regarded as two patterns of a Sensory Processing Disorder and suggested that these two disorder patterns occurred concomitantly. Clinical experience, however, resulted in the researcher questioning the above proposed concomitant relationship and hypothesised that there was a specific relation between Developmental Dyspraxia and Sensory Responsivity (Sensory Modulation Dysfunction). This study was directed at investigating the relationship between Developmental Dyspraxia and Sensory Responsivity. A review of the literature that described these two disorder patterns yielded reference to theories that underpin Developmental Dyspraxia and Sensory Responsivity. From these theories it was possible to identify some common ground between Developmental dyspraxia and Sensory Responsivity that could potentially support a relation. The Sensory Profile, Sensory Profile School Companion and the Sensory Integration and Praxis Tests were used to assess and identify Developmental Dyspraxia and Sensory Responsivity. Obtained data were statistically analysed and compared and did not produce a statistically significant positive relation between Developmental Dyspraxia and Sensory Responsivity, but yielded some weak correlations in supplementary analysis. These weak correlations have value in terms of sensory responsiveness tendencies in the presence of types of dyspraxia. Clinical analyses of the data set were performed to examine the incidence of types of dyspraxia in the sample with sensory over- or under responsiveness. These analyses demonstrated a greater presence of Developmental Dyspraxia in the population with Sensory Under-responsivity. The clinical analyses provided the researcher with additional information that was taken into account when conclusions were made. It also contributed to the recommendations that were made at the end of Chapter 5. Discussion of results was directed at explaining correlations and interpreting the implications of those correlations. A discussion of possible problems included considering possible flaws in the method and procedure that could have contributed to the research outcome. Recommendations were directed at proposals for future research and recommendations for clinical practice. Copyright / Dissertation (MOccTher)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Occupational Therapy / unrestricted

When using visual and proprioceptive information to plan a reach, it has been proposed that the brain combines these cues to estimate the object and/or limb’s location. Specifically, according to the maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) model, more reliable sensory inputs are assigned a greater weight (Ernst & Banks, 2002). In this research we examined if the brain is able to adjust which sensory cue it weights the most. Specifically, we asked if the brain changes how it weights sensory information when the availability of a visual cue is manipulated. Twenty-four healthy subjects reached to visual (V), proprioceptive (P), or visual + proprioceptive (VP) targets under different visual delay conditions (e.g. on V and VP trials, the visual target was available for the entire reach, it was removed with the go-signal or it was removed 1, 2 or 5 seconds before the go-signal). Subjects completed 5 blocks of trials, with 90 trials per block. For 12 subjects, the visual delay was kept consistent within a block of trials, while for the other 12 subjects, different visual delays were intermixed within a block of trials. To establish which sensory cue subjects weighted the most, we compared endpoint positions achieved on V and P reaches to VP reaches. Results indicated that all subjects weighted sensory cues in accordance with the MLE model across all delay conditions and that these weights were similar regardless of the visual delay. Moreover, while errors increased with longer visual delays, there was no change in reaching variance. Thus, manipulating the visual environment was not enough to change subjects’ weighting strategy, further i

The world contains objects with various properties - rigid, granular, liquid, elastic or plastic. As humans, while interacting with the objects, we plan our manipulation by considering their properties. For instance, while holding a rigid object such as a brick, we adapt our grasp based on its centre of mass not to drop it. On the other hand while manipulating a deformable object, we may consider additional properties to the centre of mass such elasticity, brittleness etc. for grasp stability. Therefore, knowing object properties is an integral part of skilled manipulation of objects.  For manipulating objects skillfully, robots should be able to predict the object properties as humans do. To predict the properties, interactions with objects are essential. These interactions give rise distinct sensory signals that contains information about the object properties. The signals coming from a single sensory modality may give ambiguous information or noisy measurements. Hence, by integrating multi-sensory modalities (vision, touch, audio or proprioceptive), a manipulated object can be observed from different aspects and this can decrease the uncertainty in the observed properties. By analyzing the perceived sensory signals, a robot reasons about the object properties and adjusts its manipulation based on this information. During this adjustment, the robot can make use of a simulation model to predict the object behavior to plan the next action. For instance, if an object is assumed to be rigid before interaction and exhibit deformable behavior after interaction, an internal simulation model can be used to predict the load force exerted on the object, so that appropriate manipulation can be planned in the next action. Thus, learning about object properties can be defined as an active procedure. The robot explores the object properties actively and purposefully by interacting with the object, and adjusting its manipulation based on the sensory information and predicted object behavior through an internal simulation model. This thesis investigates the necessary mechanisms that we mentioned above to learn object properties: (i) multi-sensory information, (ii) simulation and (iii) active exploration. In particular, we investigate these three mechanisms that represent different and complementary ways of extracting a certain object property, the deformability of objects. Firstly, we investigate the feasibility of using visual and/or tactile data to classify the content of a container based on the deformation observed when a robotic hand squeezes and deforms the container. According to our result, both visual and tactile sensory data individually give high accuracy rates while classifying the content type based on the deformation. Next, we investigate the usage of a simulation model to estimate the object deformability that is revealed through a manipulation. The proposed method identify accurately the deformability of the test objects in synthetic and real-world data. Finally, we investigate the integration of the deformation simulation in a robotic active perception framework to extract the heterogenous deformability properties of an environment through physical interactions. In the experiments that we apply on real-world objects, we illustrate that the active perception framework can map the heterogeneous deformability properties of a surface. / <p>QC 20170517</p>

La plupart des études sur la perception isolent une modalité sensorielle pour mieux l’étudier et la comprendre. Malheureusement, aucun de nos sens ne représente la seule source d’information, car une intégration sensorielle se fait en tout moment lors de la perception de l’environnement. L’information d’un sens est donc plutôt en accord ou en conflit avec l’apport d’information des autres sens. Le but de la présente étude était d’investiguer, par IRMf, les activations cérébrales d’une intégration visuelle et olfactive lorsque ces deux perceptions sont congruentes. Pour ce faire, une image et/ou une odeur étaient présentées au sujet et ce dernier devait identifier si le stimulus perçu était congruent. Ce protocole permettait d’observer les activations cérébrales lors de l’analyse d’un stimulus et la prise de décision selon la congruité du stimulus présenté. La condition de congruence vision-odeur activa les zones visuelles et olfactives plus fortement que lors des conditions contrôle (image seule, odeur seule). Ces résultats illustrent une potentialisation des aires visuelles et olfactives par une intégration d’information congruente venant de ces deux modalités. Par conséquent, l’intégration d’un stimulus visuel et odorant congruent semble rehausser la perception du stimulus. / Most studies on perception isolate one sensory modality in order to better study and comprehend it. Unfortunately, none of our senses represents the only source of information, since sensory integration is underway at all times during environmental perception. The information from one sense is therefore usually in agreement with or in conflict with the input of information from other senses. The goal of the present study was to investigate, by fMRI, the cerebral activations caused by visual and olfactory integration when these two perceptions are congruent. To do this, an image and/or an odour were presented to the subject who then had the task of identifying whether the perceived stimulus was congruent. This protocol allowed the observation of the cerebral activations during stimulus analysis and decision-making depending on the congruity of the presented stimulus. The vision-odour congruent condition activated the visual and olfactory areas more strongly than the control conditions (image only, odour only). These results illustrate a potentialization of the visual and olfactory areas by an integration of the congruent information coming from these two modalities. As a result, the integration of a visual and olfactory congruent stimulus seems to enhance the perception of a stimulus.

Diploma thesis "Evaluation of developmental dyspraxia and effects of its therapy in children" summarizes the knowledge of developmental dyspraxia or developmental coordination disorder (DCD) in the theoretical part. The practical part deals with the usage of new diagnostic method for identification of motor difficulties in children, Movement Assessment Battery for Children, second edition. The presence of motor difficulties in some children with ADHD and some children with neurofibromatosis type 1 was confirmed. The significant difference between motor skills in gymnasts and in children attending to all-round sport activities was not detected. No significant correlation between BMI and the level of motor skills in children was found. The evaluation of the effect of therapy confirmed that intervention is useful for children with developmental dyspraxia. The best improvement was found in activities which were specifically trained. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)