Effectiveness of two visual‐pedagogical methods for toothbrushing skills in autistic children: A randomized clinical trial

Abstract

AimThis study aimed to compare the effectiveness of two visual pedagogy methods, video modeling and educational posters, on improving tooth‐brushing autonomy in 10–12‐year‐old children with mild autism.MethodsSixty‐four autistic children were randomly assigned to either the video or poster groups using the Rand function in Excel. Toothbrushing skills were divided into five stages: preparation, buccal, occlusal, lingual surfaces, and the end. These five stages comprised a total of 20 steps, with each step scored from 1 (not done at all) to 5 (done independently). The final score was calculated by averaging the scores of the five stages. The FONES method of toothbrushing was used for training. Follow‐up assessments were conducted after 1 and 3 months. The data were analyzed using SPSS V26, including t‐tests, Mann–Whitney U tests, and repeated‐measures ANOVA.ResultsAfter 3 months, there were significant improvements in autonomy scores for both groups, with the video group showing greater benefits (4.37 ± 0.43) compared to the poster group (4.11 ± 0.49) (p = .03), with an effect size of η2 = .07.ConclusionBoth video and poster methods were effective in improving tooth‐brushing skills, but video modeling was associated with a higher total autonomy score.