Sensory Integration Education

The International Sensory Integration Congress, ISIC 2022, was held in California this year (14-16 July) offering delegates the chance to attend in person in California or to participate virtually. Organisers described the event as honouring A. Jean Ayres’ commitment to research and practice with the congress theme of “Sensory Neural Foundations of Social Connection”. 

SensorNet attended the congress virtually to bring you the highlights of the wonderful presentations and discussions. 

Neurobiological Foundations of Sensory Integration – From Action to Interaction: Roseann Schaaf, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA

_{From Prof Schaaf's presentation at ISIC 2022}

One of our ISIC 2022 highlights was the opening lecture by Professor Roseann Schaaf. She gave a clear and comprehensive overview of the field of SI research. Drawing on the USA’s long-term strategic plan for high quality research in ASI, and her own research in this field, (mainly around autism), Schaaf outlined the pathway to running a large RCT using ASI with autistic children. The steps included the development of the ASI Fidelity Measure (Parham et al., 2011) and the manualised clinical reasoning stage of the Data Driven Decision Making. Schaaf talked about the importance of using the right outcome measures that are aligned to what the intervention is seeking to change. She also flagged the importance of looking at family-wide impacts of ASI intervention.

We applaud that she was also encouraging the use of the term ‘multi-sensory integration’ as we know that the focus is moving from localising functions in discrete areas of the brain to understanding the critical importance of building connections at all levels of the complex brain system.

We were interested to hear her commend a superb book, From Neurons to Neighborhoods by Shonkoff, J & Phillips, D. (eds) 2000. The work reported on in the book has developed further and is highly accessible through the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard universitywhere one of its editors holds a Director-position.

Schaaf drew our attention to the importance conceptually of integrating sensory and motor processing and recommending the term ‘sensorimotor’. Some of us are also using the term ‘cognitive sensorimotor’. This interweaving of the sensory processing /integration and movement/action is a useful scene setting for the interesting work of Elizabeth Torres who is re-framing autism within a ‘movement-sensing perspective’ (Torres & Whyatt 2018). This was a great opening to this ISIC conference from a wonderful research leader.

Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Louis Cozolino, PhD

_{From Dr Cozolino's presentation at ISIC 2022}

Dr Lou Cozolino practices psychotherapy and consulting psychology. He received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from UCLA and an MTS from Harvard University. He has been a professor at Pepperdine since 1986 and lectures around the world on psychotherapy, neuroscience, trauma, and attachment. We listened with interest to his talk as his work has influenced the content of ‘The Social Brain’ on our SI Module 1 over the last six years. 

Cozolino is also a unique thinker who pulls together concepts and ideas from many different fields: interpersonal communication, social neuroscience, psychopathology of attachment and trauma experiences on the person, and evolutionary psychology and neuroscience. His own psychotherapy practice gives him a very humanistic basis to his theories and frameworks.

Cozolino has applied his concepts of ‘social intelligence’ and the ‘hard-wired need to survive as humans through connecting socially with others’ to the classroom and to working with people who have experienced trauma or/and poor attachment. He had a wonderful metaphor that the evolution of our ‘social brain’ was ‘bootstrapped’ to our physical ‘motor’ brain - hence our use of action verbs to express emotions such as ‘falling in love’. This was a pacy, charismatic and informative presentation that left us wanting to learn more about the underpinnings to what he shared with us. We recommend his books and exploring his website. 

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A Contemporary Neuroscience Perspective on Somatosensory Integration and Its Impact on Social Interactions: Sharon Cermak, EdD, OTR/L, FAOTA

_{From Prof Cermak's presentation at ISIC 2022}

Professor Sharon Cermak delivered an informative presentation on the importance of social touch, addressing the impact of a reduced amount of tactile input on children's development. Cermak shared the evidence of how reduced tactile sensory input can impact sensory integration in institutionalised infants. Cermak noted that infants whose caregivers suffer from depression are also at risk of not receiving adequate exposure to social touch.

Praxis and Cultural Differences: Dr Eynat Gal. PhD, OT

_{From Dr Gal's presentation at ISIC 2022}

Dr Eynat Gal from University of Haifa, Israel, considered whether praxis in children is affected by demographic and environmental factors. Her research examined the relationships between the 4 EASI-praxis subtexts and demographics including children's age, gender, environment and week of birth. Results suggest that praxis is affected by environmental factors and future studies should look at what kind and amount of physical activity affects praxis. 

Updates on Development of the EASI: Zoe Mailloux, OTD, OTR/L, FAOTA

_{From Mailloux's presentation to ISIC 2022}

Zoe Mailloux provided updates on the development of the EASI. Key points from the presentations were as follows:

• Preliminary norms for geographic/language difference have not yet been examined;
• Whilst most test items are ordered by difficulty level a set basal, ceiling to discontinuation criteria is still outstanding;
• There is future potential for the EASI to have computer adapted testing and possible application of artificial intelligence for scoring;
• Currently the developers are working to reduce the length of the overall assessment.
  
  

In Summary

ISIC 2022 was an inspiring event with a stimulating range of speakers and topics. It was also fascinating to view the exhibition on Dr A Jean Ayres which included original items from her life and work. We particularly loved the original handmade shapes from the manual form perception test, an adding machine and original artwork completed by Ayres herself. These items give an insight into her life and keep the legacy of her work alive.

_{Ayres exhibition at ISIC 2022}