Purpose

It was aimed to investigate the effects of Ayres Sensory Integration based intervention on balance, speech, and sensory processing skills of a 4-years and 11-month-old child with bilateral incomplete partition type 1 inner ear anomaly and using bilateral cochlear implant.

Method

The child received the Ayres sensory integration-based intervention program for 2 months in 45-minute sessions twice a week. Before and after the intervention, Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale, Categories of Auditory Performance-II for auditory perception evaluation, Test of Early Language Development -Third Edition, Speech intelligibility rating test for evaluating language-speech skills, Evaluation in Ayres Sensory Integration® (EASI), and Dunn Sensory Profile for sensory processing skills were used.

Results

In the Dunn Sensory Profile Scale, while a definite difference was found in the areas of vestibular processing, multisensory processing, modulation of sensory inputs affecting emotional responses, low endurance/tonus, inattention/distraction, and avoidance before therapy, scores in the areas of vestibular processing, low endurance/tonus and avoidance approached typical scores after therapy. According to the EASI, all subtests except Somatosensory Based Praxis Positions, Visual Perceptual Search, and Visual Based Praxis Designs are outside the normalization. The data revealed that the case had sensory perception and vestibular bilateral integration problems. After the therapy, there was an improvement in the scores of idea generation, postural control, bilateral integration, following direction, Vestibular Nystagmus, Auditory Localization, and Sensory Reactivity, although they did not reach the normalization limits.

Conclusion

This is the first case report investigating the effects of a sensory integration intervention program on balance-speech and sensory integration skills in children with hearing loss and showing positive effects on both sensory processing and other areas affecting social participation.