Scholars Award - A. Jean Ayres and the Development of Sensory Integrative Therapy: A Cognitive-Social Analysis

该项目由美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的科学、技术和社会项目（Science, Technology & Society Program）支持，是一个将科学、治疗和赋权相结合的新专业知识发展的案例研究。本书的中心焦点是a·让·艾尔斯（a . Jean Ayres），她是一位女科学家、治疗师和先驱。她发明了感觉统合（SI），这是一种新的治疗方式，用于治疗由于无法充分整合来自多种感觉模式的信息而经历学习和社交困难的儿童。Ayres将帮助儿童的愿望与科学严谨性在诊断和治疗中至关重要的认识结合起来。她为自己的诊断和治疗建立了科学基础，利用统计技术识别症状，利用神经科学确定病因。艾尔斯鼓励她的学生建立自己的诊所，诊断和治疗儿童；在这个过程中，她和她的学生们将职业治疗领域从辅助专业提升到专业，赋予职业治疗人员自主权和决策权。当然，即使在OT内部，这样的转变也会遇到阻力。这个项目包括分析Ayres的思维过程，包括她的理论的发展，她的诊断测试以及她如何设计设备来加强治疗。该项目还研究了她的学生和盟友网络的发展方式，以及她的努力在哪里遭遇阻力。人们通常把对思维的分析称为认知，把对从业者网络成长的分析称为社会，但事实上，认知和社会是密不可分的。例如，艾尔斯对学生的想法特别开放；因此，她的网络不是通过转换，而是通过吸收那些被吸引到SI的人的最好的想法来扩大的。Ayres案例研究将为那些考虑从事与社会有关的科学事业的人提供宝贵的经验教训，这些经验教训将在传播中得到强调。该项目将通过改进现有的发现、发明和创新的绘图方法，为不断发展的科学心理学领域做出贡献，这些方法可以应用于其他研究人员的新案例研究。

This project--supported by the Science, Technology & Society Program at NSF-- is a case-study of the development of a new expertise that combined science, therapy and empowerment for a nascent profession. The central focus is on A. Jean Ayres, a woman scientist, therapist and pioneer. She invented Sensory Integration (SI), a new form of therapy for children experiencing learning and social difficulties because they could not adequately integrate information from multiple sensory modalities. Ayres combined a desire to help children with a recognition that scientific rigor was essential in diagnosis and treatment. She established a scientific basis for her diagnoses and treatment, using statistical techniques to identify symptoms and neuroscience to determine a cause. Ayres encouraged her students to set up their own clinics, diagnosing and treating children; in the process, she and her students elevated the field of Occupational Therapy (OT), from paraprofessional to professional, giving OTs autonomy and decision-making authority. Such a transformation met with resistance, of course, even within OT. This project involves analyzing Ayres' thinking processes, including the development of her theory, her diagnostic tests and how she designed devices to enhance therapy. The project also studies the way in which her network of students and allies grew, and where her efforts experienced resistance. The analyses of thinking are usually referred to as cognitive, and the analyses of the growth of a network of practitioners as social, but in fact the cognitive and the social are inextricably intertwined. For example, Ayres was particularly open to ideas from students; therefore, her network expanded not by conversion but by incorporating the best ideas from those who were drawn to SI. The Ayres case-study will provide valuable lessons for those who contemplate socially-relevant scientific careers, and these lessons will be highlighted in dissemination. This project will contribute to the growing field of psychology of science by improving on existing methods for graphing discovery, invention, and innovation in ways that can be applied to new case-studies by other researchers.