Date of Award/Publication

5-2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MS in Special Education

Department

Education

Comments

Sensory integration is not abundant in the research on therapies and education. Due to the fact that there is so little information on sensory integration correlating with behaviors of adolescent students with severe emotional, behavioral, and intellectual disability, I decided to study just that. This study was done at a school in New York State that is primarily a school for students with disabilities severe enough that their local school districts cannot provide for them. There were a group of eight participants ranging from fifteen to eighteen that all had behavioral episodes almost daily. When the participants exhibiting warning signs for a negative behavior staff would administer sensory integration in the form of deep pressure, heavy work, compression vest, or body sock to the participant to observe if the sensory integration deescalated the negative behavior. During this study the eight students had a total of 140 negative behaviors. Out of the 140 negative behaviors 100 of these behaviors were deescalated with a form of sensory integration. Out of the 100 deescalating behaviors 67 of the times deep pressure was administered; the remaining 33 positive responses were in the form of other sensory integration. It was also noted that 78 times out of the 100 positive responses, sensory integration was administered to the participant in less than five seconds of their warning signs.

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