Comparison of the Effect of Two Methods of Aquatic Exercise and Vitamin D Supplementation on Stereotypic Behaviors and BMI in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that occurs in early childhood. There are various methods for training and rehabilitation of this disorder. So, the aim of the present study was to compare the effect of aquatic exercise and vitamin D supplementation on stereotypic behaviors and body mass index (BMI) in boys with ASD.

The present experimental study was conducted using a pretest-posttest design with random groups. Thus, 40 children with ASD (mean aged 10.9±2.14 years) were selected according to convenience sampling and randomly assigned to four groups of aquatic exercise (n=10), vitamin D supplementation (n=10), aquatic+supplementary (n=10) and control (n=10). Height, weight and BMI of children were measured at the beginning and the end of intervention. Aquatic exercise and aquatic+supplementary experimental groups were received the 60-minute water training program for 10 weeks, 2 sessions per week. The Vitamin D supplements and aquatic-supplementary groups also received vitamin D tablets at a dose of 50,000 IU once daily for 10 weeks.
Parents of autistic children completed the subscale of the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS-2) subscale before the experiment and after the end of the 10-week intervention. Finally, covariance analysis test was used for data analysis.

The results of data analysis showed that all three methods had a significant effect on the subscale of stereotypical behaviors and body mass index in autistic children (p<0.05), but the aquatic-supplementary method showed more efficacy than the other two methods.

Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that swimming can provide a stable sensory input and increase the level of physical activity of children with autism spectrum disorder without weight bearing. Also, given the significant deficiency of vitamin D in these children, vitamin D supplementation can improve body mass index and decrease the severity of symptoms.