Clinical Data
In the 1990’s Claudie Pomares, MSc. MSEd., used the existing research on Environmental Enrichment to develop a program of Sensory Enrichment to help children with special needs.
After 20 years of consistent results, two randomized controlled trials, and an Intent to treat analysis of 1,002 children with autism have now been published validating Sensory Enrichment Therapy™ for autism.
Clinically Proven Therapy
In randomized control trials, children who added Sensory Enrichment therapy to their existing programs were 6X more likely to improve by 5 points or more on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS).
Remarkably, 21% of the children in the Sensory Enrichment group moved up by one whole diagnostic classification on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS).
The first randomized controlled trial at UCI
The first randomized controlled trial at UCI
Results of the first study
Severity of autism, as assessed with the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, improved significantly in the enriched group compared to controls.
Results showed that after 6 months of therapy 42% of the children in the Sensory Enrichment group achieved clinically significant improvement of 5 points on that scale, compared to only 7% of the children in the standard care group.
Sensory Enrichment also produced a clear improvement in cognition, as determined by their Leiter-R Visualization and Reasoning scores.
At six months, the change in average IQ scores for the children in the enriched group was 11.3 points higher than that of the children in the control group.
The Replication Study at UCI
The Replication Study at UCI
Results of the replication study
After six months, the children in the Sensory Enrichment group showed greater gains in their I.Q. scores (+8.4 points), compared to the gains showed by children in standard care alone (+1.5 points) after six months, as assessed by the Leiter-R test.
The children in the Sensory Enrichment group also demonstrated greater reductions in their atypical sensory responses (+11.4 points) compared to the children receiving standard care (+2.9 points), as determined by the Short Sensory Profile.
Change in IQ score (Leiter)
Change in Short Sensory Profile
In addition, children in the Sensory Enrichment group improved their receptive language, as assessed by the Reynell Developmental Language Scales, by 7.42% in six months, compared to children in the standard care group, who improved by 3.63% during that period.
Remarkably, 21% of the children in the Sensory Enrichment group who initially had been classified as having classic autism using the AutismDiagnostic Observation Schedule improved to a level below the autism classification cut-off. None of the children in the control group improved to that extent.
Change in Receptive Language
21% of Sensorimotor-Enriched children and 0% of Standard-Care children fell below the autism cutoff score after 6 months
A Study with 1,002 Subjects
A Study with 1,002 Subjects