An Assessment of the Motor Performance Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the Gulf Region

Abstract

This study aims to determine the prevalence, severity, and nature of the motor abnormalities seen in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as well as to elucidate the associated developmental profiles. The short-form of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition (BOT-2) was used to assess various aspects of the motor performance of 119 children with ASD and 30 typically developing children (age range: 6–12 years) from three Gulf states. The results revealed the high prevalence of motor abnormalities among the ASD group when compared with the normative data derived from the BOT-2 manual as well as with the data concerning the typically developing group. The results also indicated that the motor performance of the children with ASD fell within the below-average range according to the BOT-2 cut-off score. Further, the results suggested that the age variable may influence the overall motor performance of children with ASD, since the children’s motor abnormalities may decrease with maturation. The results concerning the specific motor dysfunction profiles seen in individuals with ASD could help practitioners, parents, and educators to better understand the nature of the motor deficits exhibited by children with ASD, which could assist with the design and implementation of treatment and rehabilitation programs for such children. Overall, motor performance represents an important aspect that should be considered during the clinical evaluation of ASD and that should not be ignored during early interventions.

Advancing Sports Science and Physical Education Research Through a Shared Understanding of the Term Motor Performance Skills: A Scoping Review with Content Analysis

“…Features -used interchangeably with fundamental movement skills (Hastie et al, 2018;Sortwell et al, 2022); -improvement occurs with exposure to an appropriate stimulus (Boyat et al, 2017;Faigenbaum et al, -2009;Faigenbaum et al, 2016;Faigenbaum et al, 2007;Harries et al, 2012;Zwolski et al, 2017); -used interchangeably with motor skills (Alsaedi, 2020;Sortwell et al, 2022); -includes gross and fine motor skills (Kwon & Ahn, 2016;Martino & Lape, 2021); -need to be learned, practiced and reinforced (Mathisen, 2016;Sortwell et al, 2022).…”

The Challenging Heterogeneity of Autism: Editorial for Brain Sciences Special Issue “Advances in Autism Research”

“…Fuller and the group of MIND Institute directed by Sally Rogers [23] conducted a meta-analysis in order to examine the effects of the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) for young children with ASD on developmental outcome measures. Findings showed improvements in cognition and language.…”

The Effects of Therapeutic Horseback Riding Program on Motor Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Accumulating evidence indicates that up to 83% of children with ASD have varying degrees of poor motor skills and delayed motor development as compared with typically developing children [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Such motor dysfunction or deficits have been observed on measures of gross and fine motor skill, coordination, balance, gait pattern, postural control, joint flexibility and movement speed [13][14][15].…”