Sensory Processing Patterns in Dyads of Children with ASD and Their Parents

Background: Sensory atypicalities are commonly reported in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their siblings (De La Marche et al., 2012; Leekam et al., 2007); and are included in the diagnostic criteria for ASD (APA, 2013). Heritability of sensory sensitivity has been shown in the general population (Goldsmith et al., 2006) however only one study has reported elevated levels of sensory atypicalities in parents of children and adolescents with ASD (Uljarevic et al., 2014). To date, the relationship between sensory atypicalities in dyads of children with ASD and their parents has not been investigated. Exploring the relationship between sensory processing difficulties in parents of children with ASD and their offspring is critical to understand how phenotypic profiles may be inherited within families. 

Objectives: The aim was to explore the profile of sensory processing in child-parent dyads within ASD families.

Methods: Parents of 45 children with ASD, with and without learning disability (LD), aged between 3 and 15 years, and 31 parents of typically developing (TD) children aged between 4 and 13 years were recruited. Parents were asked to complete the Sensory Profile (SP; Dunn, 1999) to provide information about their children’s sensory experiences and the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile (AASP; Brown & Dunn, 2002) to self-report their personal reactions to sensory events. They were also asked to complete the Social Responsiveness Scale (ASD families, SRS; Constantino & Grubber, 2005) or the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (TD families, SDQ; Goodman, 1997).

Results: Children in both ASD groups (with and without LD) were reported by parents to show significantly more sensory atypicalities than their typically developing peers in all areas of sensory processing. 93.5% of parents of children with ASD reported themselves to have reactions to sensory events different from typical norms by at least 1SD in one or more sensory quadrants (Registration, Seeking, Sensitivity, and Avoiding). Significant group differences for the current cohort were found in the Sensitivity quadrant, where parents of children with ASD and LD had higher scores than parents of TD children (F_(2,73)=3.431, p=.038). There were no significant differences in any other sensory quadrant scores. Significant correlations were found in the TD dyads for Registration and Sensitivity scores (r=-.59, p<.001; r=-.45, p=.014 respectively).  Intraclass Correlation Coefficient analysis (two-way mixed, consistency) did not show significant agreements for any sensory processing pattern between parent-child dyads in any subgroup.

Conclusions: This is a first study to investigate sensory processing atypicalities among parent-child dyads in ASD and TD families. The findings suggest that sensory processing patterns in parents of children with ASD and TD are similar and that there is a lack of association between parent-child scores in any of the sensory quadrants. These results have important theoretical and clinical implications. Familial factors are unlikely to play an important role in the development of the sensory difficulties for children with ASD. Further work is needed to explore genetic and environmental influences on developmental pathways of the sensory atypicalities in ASD.