Date Presented Accepted for AOTA INSPIRE 2021 but unable to be presented due to online event limitations.
Parents who have sensory processing difficulties register environmental information differently, potentially influencing their stress and sleep. Among 40 parents of children with disabilities, 95% experienced moderate levels of stress and a high percentage of them had sleep issues. For parents of children with autism spectrum disorder, there were significant correlations between sleep quality and over-responsivity to social touch.
Primary Author and Speaker: Megan C. Chang
Additional Authors and Speakers: Kristin Ramos, Raquel Medina, Jimmy Yan, and Michelle Zeman
PURPOSE: Studies have shown that parents of children with special needs exhibited sensory processing issues and experienced high levels of stress (Donaldson et al., 2017; Gallagher et al, 2010). However, previous studies that examined how sensory processing patterns relate to sleep and stress often focused on children with a disability, rather than these parents (Reynolds et al., 2012). Parents who have sensory processing difficulties register environmental information differently, potentially influencing their stress and sleep, and possibly impacting their functional abilities in daily life. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between sensory processing patterns, perceived stress levels, and sleep quality among parents of children with disabilities ages 3–12 years.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey design
METHODS: The survey was developed on Qualtrics (Qualtrics, Provo, UT), a password-protected website. Convenience and snowball sampling methods were used to distribute the survey link to eligible participants. The survey includes demographic questions and three measures: Adult Sensory Processing Scale (Blanche et al., 2014), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI; Buysse et al., 1989), and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983). IBM SPSS version 26 was used for analysis.
RESULTS: A total of 40 parents completed this study and the diagnoses of these children include autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, ADHD, Down syndrome and genetic disorders. Due to the distribution of the diagnoses, we grouped these parents into ASD group and non-ASD group for further analysis. Results showed that 94% the ASD group and 96% non-ASD group experienced moderate levels of stress. However, there were more sleep problems in the ASD group (75%) than that of non-ASD group (62.5%). For sensory processing patterns, when comparing to the population means, no significant difference was found in the non-ASD group, and yet, the ASD group scored significantly higher on hypersensitivity to social touch (p = 0.04). Several significant correlations were discovered: there were significant correlations between sleep quality and over-responsive to social touch (p = 0.02) as well as between sleep medication and under-responsive to tactile input (p = 0.03).
CONCLUSION: Results from this study shed a light on how sensory processing difficulties are different in parents of children with ASD from those of children with other diagnoses as well as how sensory processing patterns relate to perceived stress and sleep. The study was conducted during the pandemic so the response rate was limited and thus, a larger sample size is needed. Nevertheless, results may help occupational therapists consider a comprehensive intervention that consider sensory processing patterns for parents of children with disabilities.
References
Donaldson, C., Stauder, K., & Donkers, J. (2017). Increased sensory processing atypicalities in parents of multiplex ASD families versus typically developing and simplex ASD families. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(3), 535-548.
Gallagher, S., Phillips, A. C., & Carroll, D. (2010). Parental stress is associated with poor sleep quality in parents caring for children with developmental disabilities. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 35(7), 728-737. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsp093
Blanche, E. I., Parham, D., Chang, M., & Mallinson, T. (2014). Development of an adult sensory processing scale (ASPS). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 68(5), 531-538. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2014.012484
