The effect of an exercise program on communication and behavior of a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Purpose:The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of exercise in the communication skills and behavior of a child with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Material:The survey involved a 7 years old boy attending a mainstream school who was diagnosed at 2.5 years of age with pervasive developmental disorder and at 3.5 years of age with ADS. The annual re-assessment, at the age of 6 defined him as a child with high functional autism. The study consisted of three phases. In the interview process through a questionnaire, data concerning the overall picture of the boy was collected. The same questionnaire was answered by all participants (parents, general class teacher, parallel support teacher and physical education teacher) two days prior and two days after the implementation of the intervention program, so as to record observations. The questionnaire investigated four areas, that is, intention or function of communication, semantic categories and use of words, context (framework) communication and ways (means) of communication. The intervention program lasted 12 weeks, at a frequency of 3 sessions per week, of 40-45 minutes each session including balance activities, self-awareness exercises, group games (3-4 people), visual -motor coordination activities, lateral movement and time and space orientation games. Results:After the implementation of the intervention program, the child showed significant improvement in all domains and in almost all subcategories. Conclusions:An individually structured exercise program results in a significant improvement in behavior, skills and communication for a child with ASD.

Global Trends in Physical-Activity Research of Autism: Bibliometric Analysis Based on the Web of Science Database (1980–2021)

“…In this respect, since Watters, R.G., and Watters, W.E. reduced the self-stimulation behavior of a group of autistic boys through physical exercise in 1980 [ 52 ], researchers have extensively researched the effects of exercise activity on the core symptoms and related disorders of individuals with ASD (for example, see [ 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 ]). A meta-analysis in 2020 [ 62 ] examined 12 randomized controlled trials published between 2010 and 2019.…”

Effectiveness of behavioral interventions for autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review

“…Fortyone of the above mentioned studies were conducted in USA [18,19,21,23,24,30,32,34,37,38,[42][43][44][45][46][47]49,50,[53][54][55][56]60,61,63,[74][75][76][77][78][79][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90]94,95,[97][98][99][100]102,107], seven were conducted in Australia [16,36,41,52,70,92,101], six w...…”

“…Most studies had a small sample size, so that the number of participants in thirty -ve studies was less than 20 [17,25,27,29,33,59,62,66,69,[73][74][75][76][77][78][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][89][90][91][93][94][95][96]99,100,[103][104][105]107], and in thirty studies, it was between 20 to 50 [18,19,21,24,35,38,39,42,46,48,50,51,53,55,57,61,63,64,67,68,79,88,92,97,98,102,106]. Follow-up was often quite short, in the 16 studies follow-up immediately [46,53,66,73,75,76,84,85,89,90,93,94,99,100,<...>…”

“…Communication-focused interventions was used in twenty one studies [15,21,26,31,46,50,51,54,55,66,67,75,76,82,91,[93][94][95]104]. Thirty-two studies used integrative programs [18,20,24,25,28,30,33,[35][36][37]40,52,58,60,62,63,71,74,[77][78][79]81,86,89,92,96,98,[100][101][102][103]107]. Also, thirty studies used social skills development interventions [16,17,…”

“…Of the 32 studies that had used for integrative approach, 28 studies were signi cantly reached in all outcomes. Four studies only examined the impact of the intervention on communication and behavior skills of participants [62,92,102,107], four studies on emotional and social skills [71,79,96,101], eight studies on social and communication skills [35,30,33,35,36,81,86,100].…”