Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Background and Objective: Autism spectrum disorder is a term used to represent a spectrum of conditions characterized by deficits in social interaction, communication, restricted interests and repetitive behavior. Autism is an invisible disorder that the autistic people are often looks like others. However, it is possible to carry out different and strange behavior. From the pervasive developmental disorder, autism is most prevalent and more than 75 percent of these disorders and its prevalence is increasing significantly. Babies later diagnosed with autism disorder were significantly delayed in the development of motor skills. In fact, the most basic response in children is movement. Any disruption in process of movement, affect learning system and causing learning problems. Motor activities improve perceptual system and play an important role in advancement of educational and social skills. The process of socialization of children begins with early motor activity and provide growth and motor development in childhood and in later years their sports participation too. Social development is process that causes the child to adapt to the social environment and relationships with others. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a selected sensorimotor integration program performed as group or individually on perceptual-motor ability and social development of 8 to 14 years old autistic children.
Methods: For this purpose, 22 autistic children who were studied in one of the Shiraz's exceptional school in 2014-15, enrolled in the experiment. Inclusion criteria were aged 8-14 years, lack of acute physical and motor problems, severe poor vision and hearing, autism disorder based on dossier of student and lack of mental retardation. In the following their parents’ consent to the presence of children in the exercise protocol, through the questionnaire. Children randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group (control group including six people and 2 experimental groups including eight people). In pretest, the perceptual-motor ability of subject were evaluated by short form Briuninks-Oseretsky test of motor proficiency and parents completed social communication questionnaires about their children. The experimental group engaged in 12 sessions of sensory-motor integration activities (group training and individual group). The activities were executed in each session for 45 minutes. The control group continued their daily activities without any intervention. The posttest was performed using short form Briuninks-Oseretsky test of proficiency and social development questionnaire after final session. For the analysis of data, the mean, standard deviation and analysis of covariance was used. Data were analyzed by covariance test (α=0.05).
Results: Data analysis showed that the sensory-motor integration activities have positive effects on perceptual-motor ability in autism children compare with control group but there was no significant difference between group and individual approach (p=0.327). This means that the group training was not more than individually training. Comparison of groups ranging social development showed that the difference in posttest between the control group and group approach was significant (p=0.007), but between the control group and individually approach was not significant (p=0.064) but social development of group and individual approaches, there was a significant difference (p=0.005). This means the group approach was better than individually approach.
Conclusion: As a result, sensory-motor integration activities are recommended for autism children to improve their motor proficiency. Due to the importance of physical activity in perfect dimensions of children development, especially social development and motor proficiency and its impact on shaping the child's personality in adulthood, attention about this crucial stage is important. Because all the activity and attention in this period will be paid to children, in the future will improve the quality relationship with his children and the environment. The intervention involving sensory-motor integration with an emphasis on proprioceptive and vestibular senses significantly improved especially social development and motor proficiency in the studied population. It is recommended to use this program in educational and social settings for autistic children. In addition, it is suggested as a part of family education programs or planned programs for children with autism.