SID, DSI and now SPD or Sensory Processing Disorder

While everyone agrees on the term "Sensory Integration Therapy" there are several terms floating around regarding the name of the actual disorder that causes the need for SIT. So here is a little background on the name "Sensory Processing Disorder" that I hope will clear up some confusion. Jean Ayers originally recognized that some children have a neurological disorder that resulted in an impaired ability to process sensory information. She came up with the term “sensory integration dysfunction.” I talked with some researchers about the name morphing phenomenon and it started because the initials for “Sensory Integration Dysfunction” are the same as SIDS “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome” and they didn’t want to cause confusion… (OK I’m so tempted to comment, but I won’t because I like these people…) So then some researchers started referring to the condition as DSI and the name has been morphing since.

Recently, they all got together and decided they will uniformly refer to this condition as “Sensory Processing Disorder” or SPD. The hope is that the condition will be formally recognized in the DSM as many children have only SPD while others have co-conditions like Autism and SPD. For a thorough discussion of the name morph you can visit: www.spdnetwork.org/aboutspd/defining.html.

So SID, DSI, SDI and now SPD it’s all the same condition. I hope this helps, I'm going to go take a nap.