Joshua Feder, MD, on broadening the role of sensory integration in psychiatry

Joshua Feder, MD, executive director of Positive Development and associate clinical professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine, joined Contemporary Pediatrics to explain the gap between clinical need and diagnostic recognition when it comes to sensory processing challenges.

In a prior discussion, Feder emphasized how pediatricians and caregivers can use sensory play to build relationships with children with autism, reframing it not as a set of toys or tools, but as a vehicle for understanding how a child navigates their world. Sensory difficulties, he argues, are not exclusive to autism, though current International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes are only listed in such a way.

“When we talk about these sensory problems, it kind of comes under the umbrella of sensory processing disorder,” Feder said. “If you look up the ICD-10 code for sensory processing disorder, it gives you the code for autism, even though we know sensory problems occur throughout all kinds of different conditions. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) Committee rejected sensory processing disorder back in 2013 and the only thing that is left is this connection through IDC-10. There's an entire industry of sensory integration occupational therapy that's been doing their own research on sensory processing disorder for for many decades. The question is, can they break into the other journals," Feder added.

WATCH MORE: Sensory play for children with autism, with Joshua Feder, MD

"The evidence base for developmental, relationship-based interventions includes consideration of sensory processing as a foundation for many of those approaches which do, in fact, have a reportable effect size for social communication," said Feder. "So we do have evidence that this can be incredibly helpful beyond clinical experience."