Percepciones de terapeutas ocupacionales sobre el lenguaje y la comunicación de los niños con déficit de integración sensorial

Background. Occupational therapists and speech language pathologists working together for helping children, who suffer sensory integration dysfunction, to improve their personal, social and educational performance. Therapists develop a valuable understanding of the communicative and linguistic characteristics of children under treatment through their experience on this field. Objective. Describing the insight occupational therapists create on the communicative and linguistic characteristics of children suffering from sensory integration dysfunction. Materials and method. Five occupational therapists from Bogota, Colombia, were interviewed. These therapists have had experience in handling children diagnosed SID (between 4 and 6 years of age), and have been certified as Sensory Integrators. Results. The results show that children who have sensory integration dysfunction (SID), depending on the type of sensory system being affected, can be featured by having a disorganized use of language, in addition to speech and writing difficulties. Conclusions. The intervention in occupational therapy based on sensory integration is effective and produces positive changes in language use. The patients are sent to speech language pathology after achieving some progress in the treatment in occupational therapy.