Regul-A: A Technological Application for Sensory Regulation of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the Home Context

(1) Background: Sensory processing disorder is now recognised as a core feature of autism spectrum disorder that influences children’s adaptive behaviours, which, in turn, may interfere with their participation in life situations. This study describes the process of developing a technological platform, in the form of an app, to help families regulate children with ASD, aged 3–6 years old, by applying sensory strategies to improve the child’s participation in daily routines in the home context. (2) Methods: A focus group formed by four specialised occupational therapists who intervene with children with ASD was selected in order to understand and discuss content that should be included in the app. At a later stage, a group of three was involved to ensure quality and veracity in technological platform elaboration. (3) Results: The purpose of the app, named Regul-A, is to help parents regulate children with ASD regarding their participation in home routines. The sensory strategies provided by the focus group in the three major occupations of the child were the first results obtained, followed by the development of the app structure. (4) Conclusions: The next phase of the study will be the use of the platform by families of children with ASD and occupational therapists. It is believed that, in the future, Regul-A will be used as a tool to gather, analyse and manage data on the occupational performance of children with ASD in the home context, particularly for activities of daily living, sleep, rest and play, facilitating the implementation of strategies and the sharing of information between parents and occupational therapists.

Is Sensory Modulation Disorder a Risk Factor for Female Sexual Dysfunction?

Date Presented Accepted for AOTA INSPIRE 2021 but unable to be presented due to online event limitations. Individuals with female sexual dysfunction (FSD) were found to be at increased risk for sensory over-responsivity across sensory modalities. OTs provide services for a variety of diagnostic populations with sexual dysfunction and should expand their unique role to include individuals with co-occurring FSD and sensory modulation disorder, by incorporating sensory processing into the routine evaluation and providing sensory strategies to facilitate satisfying sexual functioning. Primary Author and Speaker: Aviva Yochman Contributing Authors: Mijal Luria, Hadas Noy-Nota

Hunting bats adjust their echolocation to receive weak prey echoes for clutter reduction

How animals extract information from their surroundings to guide motor patterns is central to their survival. Here, we use echo-recording tags to show how wild hunting bats adjust their sensory strategies to their prey and natural environment. When searching, bats maximize the chances of detecting small prey by using large sensory volumes. During prey pursuit, they trade spatial for temporal information by reducing sensory volumes while increasing update rate and redundancy of their sensory scenes. These adjustments lead to very weak prey echoes that bats protect from interference by segregating prey sensory streams from the background using a combination of fast-acting sensory and motor strategies. Counterintuitively, these weak sensory scenes allow bats to be efficient hunters close to background clutter broadening the niches available to hunt for insects.

Horned Pitviper (Serpentes: Viperidae: Ophryacus smaragdinus) Can Detect Substrate Vibrations of Potential Prey of Differing Size

Despite that snakes lack outer traces of an auditory system, they respond to acoustic stimuli in the air, in terrestrial substrates and in water, through a functioning cochlea and a somatic system. In reptiles, the use of vibrations has been primarily associated with communication among individuals. However, vibrations also can be a useful mechanism in predator-prey interactions, facilitating efficient hunting. The aim of our study was to examine the ability of horned pitvipers (Ophryacus smaragdinus) to detect and discriminate prey through their vibrations, which were recorded and played back with a transmitter of acoustic waves under a controlled experimental condition. We analyzed the capability of snakes to detect and discriminate potential prey (mouse and lizard) of different sizes, by playing back vibrations that prey species emitted when moving. Our results showed that O. smaragdinus has the ability to detect vibrations of its prey, but it does not discriminate among prey species or size based on the vibrations. We conclude that the auditory system of O. smaragdinus is an important first step to detect prey via vibrations, and that this species likely uses other complementary sensory strategies, such as chemoperception and or thermoperception, for prey recognition.