Statement from the SPD Foundation Endorsing New Breakthrough Study Revealing Biological Basis for Sensory Processing Disorders in Kids We are so excited to share this new information on SPD! The researchers who conducted this groundbreaking new study from UC San Francisco, published in the online Journal, NeuroImage: Clinical, found that children affected with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) have quantifiable differences in brain structure, confirming a biological basis for the disorder that sets it apart from other neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and autism. SPD affects 5% to 16% of children in the general population. That is more than 1 child in every classroom. Typically these children are misdiagnosed with ADHD or autism, or they are not diagnosed at all… Instead an assumption is made that the child has ‘bad’ behavior. Sadly, parents are accused of not disciplining their children appropriately or not providing enough structure for their children. The SPD Foundation has been studying SPD for over 30 years and we support continued research. The Foundation organized a multi-disciplinary team of experts called the SPD Scientific Workgroup, which includes 50 physicians and scientists from research institutions such as Harvard, MIT, Duke and many other universities. These researchers have provided physiological, neurological, psychological, etiological, familial and other data about SPD. The study was led by two members of the SPD Scientific Workgroup, senior author Dr. Pratik Mukherjee, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging and bioengineering at UCSF and Dr. Elysa Marco, MD, who led the study along with postdoctoral fellow Julia Owen, PhD. Marco is a cognitive and behavioral child neurologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. The Foundation is proud to have helped match these researchers with the Wallace Research Foundation, which provided the funding for this study. Dr. Mukherjee and Dr. Marco’s research is groundbreaking and provides the first biologic evidence that SPD is indeed a valid disorder, answering the claim of some that SPD is not a ‘real’ disorder. In the recent release of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (5th ed.), the application of the SPD Scientific Workgroup to include SPD as a valid diagnosis was turned down. This new study suggests perhaps that the decision should be reconsidered. Please feel free to add comments to their blog or Facebook page. SPD FOUNDATION
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:10:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015