Development of an integrated program of sensory rehabilitation based on vibroacoustic and virtual reality and its effectiveness on the profile of auditory processing in children with autism spectrum disorder: A Case study

Introduction: People with autism spectrum disorder have sensory abnormalities in addition to social interactions, communication skills, limited interests and stereotyped behaviors. Therefor the present study conducted with the aim of development of an integrated program of sensory rehabilitation based on vibroacoustic and virtual reality and its effectiveness on the profile of auditory, in children with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: In this study a single- subject research methodology was used. On this account and by using purposive sampling method, 5 children among all autistic children who referred to Zehnara rehabilitation center in the second half of 1400 were selected according to entry criteria of the study. After confirming the external validity of the integrated sensory rehabilitation program through the preliminary implementation of the intervention on two subjects who were randomly selected from the sample and taking into account the results of this stage, the integrated rehabilitation program was implemented on the other three subjects. Having attended 4 base line session, every child received integrated program of sensory rehabilitation in 10 sessions. One month after intervention, four test sessions were followed. The tool used in this research to collect the data include: Sensory profile 2. Results: The results of the data chart analysis based on descriptive statics and visual analysis indices revealed that the intervention has been effective on the five participants (Sort by PND: 70, 90, 80, 90 & 100 for subjects 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5). Conclusions: The results of the present study show that integrated program of sensory rehabilitation based on vibroacoustic and virtual reality can improve the auditory processing of Autistic children and can be used as a method in the rehabilitation centers