enhancing emotion regulation and critical thinking in hearing-impaired individuals through sensory integration therapy: a randomized controlled trial

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of sensory integration therapy (sit) in improving emotion regulation and critical thinking skills in individuals with hearing impairments. a randomized controlled trial was conducted with 30 participants (15 in the intervention group receiving sit and 15 in the control group). the intervention consisted of ten 75-minute sit sessions over a two-month period. emotion regulation and critical thinking were measured at three time points: pre-intervention, post-intervention, and two-month follow-up, using the difficulties in emotion regulation scale (ders) and watson-glaser critical thinking appraisal (wgcta), respectively. data were analyzed using repeated measures anova and bonferroni post-hoc tests. significant improvements in emotion regulation were observed in the intervention group from pre-intervention (m = 95.45, sd = 12.78) to post-intervention (m = 81.32, sd = 11.45), and maintained at follow-up (m = 82.67, sd = 12.01). the control group showed no significant changes. for critical thinking, the intervention group’s scores increased significantly from pre-intervention (m = 28.67, sd = 5.23) to post-intervention (m = 36.78, sd = 4.89), and remained high at follow-up (m = 35.54, sd = 4.67). the control group’s scores did not change significantly. anova results indicated significant main effects for time and group for both variables (p < .001), with significant interaction effects (p < .001). sensory integration therapy significantly improves emotion regulation and critical thinking in individuals with hearing impairments, with effects sustained over a two-month follow-up. these findings support the use of sit as an effective intervention for enhancing cognitive and emotional skills in this population.