Supporters' experiences of sensory characteristics of children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities in after-school daycare centres: A qualitative study.
Yuta Koto, Machiko Tomozawa, Toshiaki Sato and 3 others
PMID 37823349WHAT IT FOUND
Staff caring for children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities focused on sight, sound and touch, watching subtle reactions to guide care.
They relied on trust, collaboration and repeated exposure, but limited space, time and training made sensory support hard.
Key findings
01Supporters were particularly interested in visual, auditory and tactile characteristics, and they found it difficult to understand each sensory characteristic.
02They observed facial expressions and limb movements, and they noted that children also used voices to express comfort.
03Limited space and lack of learning opportunities were recognised as challenges in responding to sensory characteristics.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Only urban after-school daycare centres for children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities were studied, so rural settings and facilities that do not specialise in these children were not covered. The study included 20 staff members from three facilities, and the authors described the results as preliminary for transferability. Only two physiotherapists were recruited, so the physiotherapy perspective was thin. Participants were recruited by snowball sampling, which may have limited the diversity of views. Some interviews were short, and some participants had never verbalised sensory characteristics, so tacit knowledge may be missing. The first author was a nurse who had worked at one of the facilities, which may have affected what participants chose to discuss.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the described support methods as evidence that they improve children's sensory or developmental outcomes. The study reported staff perceptions from 20 supporters in three urban after-school daycare centres, and it did not measure child outcomes.