Letter to the editor RE: Novak and Honan (2019)

We are writing to raise concerns regarding information presented in a recent systematic review by Novak and Honan (2019) published in the Australian Occupational Therapy Journal. We have two issues with this systematic review and we wish to draw specific attention to intervention 41, sensory integration (SI), page 4. First, SI is defined incorrectly here as including sensory diets, brushing and weighted vests. Recent systematic reviews have highlighted the importance of correctly defining SI using a specific fidelity measure (Schaaf, Dumont, Arbesman, & May‐Benson, 2018; Schoen et al., 2019). A correct definition is an important first step in evaluating the evidence of interventions. Novak and Honan have included a number of studies in their systematic review, which claim to evaluate SI, but do not meet the fidelity criteria and are therefore not SI.