Effectiveness of a Sensory Integrative Therapy Program for Children with Perceptual-Motor Deficits

This study was an evaluation of the sensory integrative therapy (SIT) program (Ayres, 1972a) for children at the Christchurch Hospital. Fifty-five children were randomly assigned to the SIT program, a parallel physical education program, or to a no-treatment condition. The children were assessed before and after treatment on measures of perceptual-motor development, language and reading development, self-concept, and handwriting skills. Covariance analysis, with age and pretest scores as covariates, found no significant differences between groups on any of the measures except reading progress among those children who could already read at the begin-ning of the program. Children who made the least progress during therapy were those who (a) had epilepsy, (b) were from a low-income, single-parent family, or (c) had behavioral problems. Sensory integrative therapy (SIT) (Ayres, 1972a) is a controversial perceptual-motor training program de-signed for children with learning dis-abilities (LD) who exhibit poor sensory-motor development (Bochner, 1980