The Importance of Conceptual Origins: The Case of the Just-Right Challenge.

Core concepts in occupational therapy have often developed over time with contributions from multiple clinicians and scholars. This makes it difficult to determine exactly from where, or from whom, ideas originated. Without original sources, we cannot chart the historical development of ideas and honor those whose scholarship made it possible.

Play as Occupation: The State of Our Science and a Research Agenda for the Profession.

Occupational therapists view play through a unique lens. Considering play as a human occupation, and one to which all people have a right, places occupational therapists among a special group of professionals championing play. This State of the Science article seeks to increase awareness regarding the occupational therapy profession's contributions and to situate those contributions within the larger body of literature on play while also promoting further study of play as an occupation.

Ayres Sensory Integration® for Addressing Play in Autistic Children: A Multiple-Baseline Examination.

Importance: Play is an area of difficulty for autistic children, and occupational therapy practitioners need evidence to guide interventions to improve play for this population. Ayres Sensory Integration® (ASI) intervention has not yet been studied for its impact on play outcomes.

Objective: To examine the impact of ASI intervention on play types in autistic children.

Father-Child Playfulness: A Secondary Analysis of a Multiple-Baseline Single-Subject Study of Three Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Importance: Ayres Sensory Integration® (ASI) is commonly used with children on the autism spectrum to promote sensory processing and improved occupational performance, including play. To date, there has been no explicit effort to examine improvements in playfulness through ASI.

Objective: To explore whether ASI, coupled with parent training, improves child playfulness and fathers' support of child playfulness.

A Systematic Review of Interventions to Improve the Occupation of Play in Children With Autism.

Play in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often atypical, yet consensus regarding effective occupational therapy strategies for improving play is not established. To examine the efficacy of strategies used in occupational therapy to improve play in ASD, authors completed a systematic review of papers from January 1980 through January 2019. Search terms included autism, Asperger's, ASD, autistic in combination with play, playfulness, pretend, imagination, praxis, creativity, and generativity.

Using a Multifaceted Approach to Working With Children Who Have Differences in Sensory Processing and Integration.

Pediatric occupational therapy practitioners frequently provide interventions for children with differences in sensory processing and integration. Confusion exists regarding how best to intervene with these children and about how to describe and document methods. Some practitioners hold the misconception that Ayres Sensory Integration intervention is the only approach that can and should be used with this population.

Development of the Classroom Sensory Environment Assessment (CSEA).

The Classroom Sensory Environment Assessment (CSEA) is a tool that provides a means of understanding the impact of a classroom's sensory environment on student behavior. The purpose of the CSEA is to promote collaboration between occupational therapists and elementary education teachers. In particular, students with autism spectrum disorder included in general education classrooms may benefit from a suitable match created through this collaborative process between the sensory environment and their unique sensory preferences.

Effectiveness of Interventions for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Their Parents: A Systematic Review of Family Outcomes.

This systematic review examined the literature published from January 2006 to April 2013 related to the effectiveness of occupational therapy interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their parents to improve parental stress and self-efficacy, coping, and resilience and family participation in daily life and routines. From the 4,457 abstracts, 34 articles were selected that matched the inclusion criteria. The results were mixed and somewhat inconclusive because this body of literature is in its infancy.

Occupational Therapy: Meeting the Needs of Families of People With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Occupational therapy has much to offer to families of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, people outside the profession may be unaware of occupational therapy's breadth and scope. It is our responsibility and our duty to express the full range of occupational therapy services through research, clinical practice, advocacy, and consumer education.

Improving dental visits for individuals with autism spectrum disorders through an understanding of sensory processing.

The increasing prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suggests that dental practices will be seeing patients with this diagnosis more frequently. Although patients with ASD have similar dental needs to other patients, the symptoms of the disorder may influence the ability of dental practitioners to provide necessary care. Dental professionals may be unaware of the difficulties with sensory processing common to patients with ASD.

A qualitative study of coping in mothers of children with an autism spectrum disorder.

A significant body of research exists that explores the stressors of raising a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There are fewer studies, however, that examine specific effective coping strategies of mothers of children with an ASD. This qualitative study explored mothers' perceptions of effective coping strategies for their parenting stressors.

Children's perceptions of play experiences and play preferences: a qualitative study.

This qualitative study investigated the perceptions of play experiences and rationales for play choices of 6 boys and 4 girls between the ages of 7 and 11 years. Individual in-depth interviews were completed and then transcribed, and the transcripts were coded and analyzed using grounded theory methodology. Fun emerged from the data as the core category explaining the choice of specific play activities for children, and 4 additional categories of characteristics surfaced as contributors to the children's perception of fun: relational, activity, child, and contextual.