Is my child eligible to take part?
Children are eligible to take part in the trial if they: 1. have a diagnosis of ASD (as documented on medical and/or educational records), OR have probably or likely ASD (defined as currently being assessed with the local ASD pathway); 2. are between 4 and 11 years old at the start of the trial 3. plan to remain in mainstream primary education until 6-months after randomisation; 4. have definite or probable sensory processing difficulties; 5. have a parent or carer who is able to provide consent for them to take part. As well as having all of the above, children will not be able to take part if they: 1. are currently receiving sensory integration therapy or have received it in the past; 2. are currently receiving Applied Behaviour Analysis therapy (ABA). |
What is involved?
SenITA is a randomised clinical trial. This means that we need to be able to compare SIT to the treatment normally offered to families ('usual care') in an unbiased way. To do this, half of the children taking part in the trial will receive the SIT while the other half will continue with their usual care. The research team do not decide who is in which group, this is done by a computer to make it completely fair - this is known as randomisation. Your child will have an equal change of being in either the SIT group or the usual care group.
The SIT being offered as part of this study involves regular face-to-face sessions with an occupational therapist at a specialist clinic. Initially the therapist will assess your child for specific sensory integration difficulties and will discuss the goals you feel are important to you and your child. You will be asked to complete a brief background history to help your child better. The therapy will then be delivered as 26 1-hour sessions over a 6 month period. This will be broken down as shown in the flow diagram.
Those children who are randomised to the usual care group will not receive any extra therapy from the study team but will carry on receiving any care that they are currently getting. |
Where is the study taking place?
We are currently running the study in the following health boards in south Wales and England:
How can we get involved?
If you think your child might be eligible to take part and you would like to know more about the study, please get in touch with us. You can either complete the online form on the 'contact us' page, or give us a ring or print off a Referral Form on the 'Information Sheets' page. Once we have your details, we will get in touch to discuss the study a bit more and to arrange a screening assessment.
|