Effectiveness of Simultaneous Musical-Motor Activities on Balance Improvement in Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder

The impaired balance is one of the most obvious movement disorders in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The purpose of current study was to investigate the effectiveness of simultaneous musical-motor activities on balance improvement in children with high-functioning autism.

This was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design and a control group. The participations were 22 children with high-functioning autism with mean age of 8.50 ± 1.05 years; they were randomly divided into two intervention groups including with and without music, and a control group. The motor intervention was performed for 12 weeks, three sessions per week and 45 to 60 minutes for each session. The Orff music was used during the sessions. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children-Second Edition (MABC-2) test was used to evaluate the balance of these children. Moreover, data were analyzed using univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

F-value was significantly different between the three motor intervention groups with and without exposure to music and control group (P < 0.001) in the static balance (F = 52.17) and dynamic balance (F = 24.33) post-test scores in children with high-functioning autism.

According to the findings, musical-motor activities can be recommended as a motor therapy intervention to improve static and dynamic balance for these children.