the relationship between sensory-processing disorders and sleep disturbances in school-aged autistic children in shiraz, 2015

Background: autism is a neurological disorder that limits communication, socialization, and participation of children in symbolic play. sensory processing disorders are common characteristics (45% to 96%) of children with pervasive development disorders, including. sleep disorders are also more prevalent in autistic children than in normal children. objectives: this study aimed to investigate the relationship between sensory processing disorders and sleep disturbances in school-aged autistic children. patients and methods: this study is quantitative, observational, and cross-sectional. 35 school-aged autistic children in shiraz, iran were selected using cluster sampling. a demographic questionnaire, short sensory profile (ssp), and the sleep disturbance scale for children (sdsc) were used. the pearson correlation coefficient and pearson chi-square were used during data analysis. results: results shows that autistic children show clear differences from normal function (74.3%), possible differences with normal function (20%), and normal function (5.7%) in their total sensory processing scores. 95.3% of autistic children had some degrees of abnormal sensory processing disorder. also, 68.6% of the participants suffered from sleep disorders. however, there was no relationship between sensory processing disorders and sleep disturbances in children with autism (p value = 0.83). also, there was no correlation between the subscales of sensory processing disorders and the subscales of sleep disturbances. conclusions: the results showed that despite the simultaneous high prevalence of sleep disturbances and sensory processing disorders in children with autism, there isn’t a significant relationship between the two conditions among these children.