8 20 03

Dear colleagues:

Our summer Content Validity study for the SCHOOL ASSESSMENT OF SENSORY INTEGRATION (SASI) is almost completed and has revealed wonderful data. Thank you to all of you who so kindly participated.

From the wonderful feedback we received during our Focus Groups at the National AOTA Conference and this content validity study, we are now preparing for our next phase of pilot studies and normative data collection. 

The purpose of the SASI is to provide the educational team with information regarding a student's sensory integrative functioning and sensory processing, in order to create potential strategies to enhance performance in the school.  The SASI will examine behaviors indicative of sensory modulation dysfunction and dyspraxia according to current sensory integration theory and practice, as well as the related areas of arousal, attention, and social participation.  The SASI will examine the child's performance in a variety of classroom (including music, art and PE) and school environments (including the school bus, cafeteria, playground and transitions) allowing comparison, and engendering discussion amongst the team regarding the differences in performance in different environments.


If you are  interested in participating with our data collection and or know of others who would like to participate, please send an email to sasi@henryot.com and put 'SASI data gatherer' in the subject line.

Initially, we will be asking those who are interested to be the coordinator for the collection of data from one child.  The coordinator's role is to gain permission from the child's parent and the school administrator, give the appropriate individuals the SASI forms to fill out, collect them again and return them to us in a self addressed envelope which we will be providing 

The child may be any typical child you choose.  The child should be in a regular education classroom (kg through 6th grade), receiving no special education services, with no known medical diagnosis and on no known medications.  You could even choose your own child or a friend's child.

The child's parent must give permission for the school staff and teachers to rate the child.  However, they should be informed that their child will not be asked to perform any tasks, and will not even know that he or she is being rated.  As the child's name need not be reported, it will be entirely confidential for the family chosen. We only need to know the child's grade in school and the date of birth so that his/her age can be accurately calculated in years and months.

We also ask that you inform your school administrator and gain permission for participation.  There will be a form sent to you for parent, teacher and administrator signatures. The benefits for your school district will be that you and your team will have a head start in learning how to use this new tool which we are confident will help all school staff develop understanding and compassion for students with sensory processing dysfunction.

The child's teacher will complete the forms for the academic classroom environment and the forms for social participation within the classroom environment.  As the SASI coordinator, you will give the instructions and forms for the art, physical education and music classroom environments to those respective teachers, and the bus, bathroom and cafeteria forms to appropriate staff for those environments.  In addition, each rater must complete a social participation page for the student in their environment.  For example, the art teacher will complete the art page, and a social participation page for art class. 
The music teacher will do the same.  The teachers do not need to take time out of the school day to observe and rate the child.  They can think back for the last month or two to that child's performance and fill out the rating form at any time that is convenient. 

We will send you all the necessary documents.  The files will include the SASI assessment tool, the SASI scoring form, the permission letter and the instruction manual in its current draft form.  You will need to print out one copy of each, and then copy the social participation pages for each environment being rated.

Please contact us at sasi@henryot.com and indicate your interest by writing
"SASI data gatherer" in the subject line.

Thank you so much for your interest in participating!  We (Heather Miller-Kuhaneck, Diana A. Henry, and Tara J. Glennon) look forward to working with you and meeting you.