FACTOR-ANALYSIS ON THE SENSORY PROFILE FROM A NATIONAL SAMPLE OF CHILDREN WITHOUT DISABILITIES

Objective. The purpose of this study was to identify relationships in the 125 items of the revised Sensory Profile, a tool designed to asses s children's responses to commonly occurring sensory events. Method. P arents of 1,115 children ages 3 to 10 years and without disabilities c ompleted the Sensory Profile. The parents reported the percentage of t ime their children engaged in each of the 125 behaviors listed on the profile. Results. Factor analysis revealed nine discreet factors that indicate sensory modulation and responsiveness: sensory seeking, emoti onally reactive, low endurance/tone, oral sensory sensitivity, sedenta ry, and fine motor/perceptual. Conclusions. In addition to the traditi onal method of organizing sensory history information by sensory syste m, we may need to consider a person's thresholds to sensory events as well as his or her responsiveness to sensation. Because the Sensory Pr ofile factors in these children without disabilities are similar to pa tterns observed in children with various disabilities, it may be that some sensory processing problems are related to intensity or duration of behaviors as they begin to interfere with functional performance in daily life.