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Effectiveness of Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapies for Improving Adaptive Behavior and Motor Function in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

ABSTRACT: Equine-assisted activities and therapies (EAAT) have been suggested to improve adaptive behavior, and possibly motor function, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study investigated the effects of EAAT on adaptive behavior and motor function in 15 children with ASD (13 males) aged 7-15 years as well as the impact of EAAT on the magnitude of stress in the parent-child system and the evolution in the child interaction with both the trained therapist and the therapeutic animal through the 20 weekly sessions of EAAT. EAAT were associated with greater adaptive behavior and coordination (all p ≤ 0.01) as well as a progressive improvement in the child's abilities to respond to the increasing complexity of such form of positive behavioral support (all p < 0.001). However, EAAT did not prove to be effective in reducing parental distress. Collectively, preliminary evidence presented here may have important public health implications and gives reason to hope that EAAT could possibly be an effective option in ASD, warranting further investigation of its potential benefits in clinical trials among larger samples.

SUBMITTER: Zoccante L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8073280 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Effectiveness of Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapies for Improving Adaptive Behavior and Motor Function in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Zoccante Leonardo L Marconi Michele M Ciceri Marco Luigi ML Gagliardoni Silvia S Gozzi Luigi Alberto LA Sabaini Sara S Di Gennaro Gianfranco G Colizzi Marco M

Journal of clinical medicine 20210416 8

Equine-assisted activities and therapies (EAAT) have been suggested to improve adaptive behavior, and possibly motor function, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study investigated the effects of EAAT on adaptive behavior and motor function in 15 children with ASD (13 males) aged 7-15 years as well as the impact of EAAT on the magnitude of stress in the parent-child system and the evolution in the child interaction with both the trained therapist and the therapeutic animal through the 20 we ...[more]

PMID: 33923582

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Project description:Objective: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience significant challenges with their motor coordination. It is not, however, well understood how motor coordination may impact the behavioral functioning of children with ASD. Therefore the purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between motor coordination and adaptive behavior in 7-12-year-old children with ASD. Methods: Motor coordination was assessed using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, 2nd Edition (MABC-2) and adaptive behavior was assessed by parental report using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, 2nd Edition (VABS-2) as part of a larger cross-sectional study. Descriptive characteristics were calculated for MABC-2 and VABS-2 scores and Spearman's rank order correlation analyses were used to examine the relationship between motor coordination and adaptive behavior. Results: On average, the participants (n = 26) exhibited significant challenges in regard to their motor coordination with all but two participants classified as having significant motor impairments by scoring at or below the 16th percentile on the MABC-2. Results from the correlation analyses indicated that manual dexterity was positively related to daily living skills (? = 0.58, p < 0.003), and overall motor coordination was positively related to daily living skills (? = 0.60, p < 0.003) and overall adaptive behavior (? = 0.57, p < 0.003). In all instances, better motor coordination was related to more adaptive behaviors. Conclusion: These results highlight the profound motor coordination challenges that children with ASD experience and also suggest that these challenges, particularly with manual dexterity, are related to the daily behavior of children with ASD. The interrelatedness of motor and adaptive behavior suggests the need to further explore the impact of motor-based interventions for this population, as well as conduct longitudinal studies to disentangle these relationships.

Project description:BackgroundHeterogeneity in adaptive behavior abilities among people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is expressed not only as uneven levels of impairment across domains, but also in the developmental trajectories of adaptive skills. We studied the question of whether, after accounting for global adaptive behavior development, we find evidence of heterogeneity in the trajectories of specific domains of adaptive behavior.MethodsA sample of 504 children with ASD was obtained by combining data from two independent natural history studies conducted in North America. We used a factor of curves model to explain growth between 36 and 138 months in Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Second Edition (VABS) age equivalents as a function of domain-specific and global growth processes.ResultsThe domain-specific trajectories in all three domains (Communication, Daily Living Skills, and Socialization) reflected impairment relative to age expectations as well as slower-than-expected growth with age, and the parameters of these trajectories were moderately-to-strongly correlated across domains. The global adaptive behavior trajectory had an initial (36-41 months of age) developmental level of about 22 age-equivalent months, and eventually slowed after initially increasing by about 6 months each year. The global trajectory accounted for the majority of variance in the domain-level processes; however, additional variance remained (14%-38%) in the domain-level intercepts, slopes, and quadratic processes.ConclusionsThese results extend existing theoretical and empirical support for the hierarchical structure of adaptive behavior to include its development over time in clinical samples of children with ASD. A latent global trajectory may be sufficient to describe the growth of adaptive behavior in children with ASD; however, the remaining domain-specific variability after accounting for global adaptive behavior development allows for the possibility that differential effects of intervention on specific domains may be possible and detectable.

Project description:There is a lack of current research to support the efficacy of a combination of equine-assisted activities (EAA) and brain building activities to influence motor skill competencies in youth with neurodevelopmental disorders (ND). The primary objective of this study was to quantify changes in motor skill proficiency before and after 8 weeks of EAA and brain-building activities in youth with ND. A secondary objective was to quantify changes in motor skill proficiency before and after 1 year of EAA and brain-building activities in youth with ND. Twenty-five youth completed the same 32-week protocol that was separated into 4, 8-week blocks, in the following order: (1) control; (2) EAA-only; (3) washout; (4) GaitWay block (EAA and brain building activities). Before and after each block, motor skills were assessed using the Short Form of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-Version 2 (BOT-2). Seven youth continued with the GaitWay intervention for one additional year, and the BOT-2 Short Form was also administered following this intervention. A repeated-measures analysis-of-variance was performed to compare BOT-2 subtest and overall scores between interventions with a significance of 0.05. Manual dexterity was higher at Post-Washout [3.3 (2.4)] vs. Pre-Control [2.2 (2.1); p = 0.018] and Post-Control [2.6 (2.0); p = 0.024], and at Post-GaitWay vs. Pre-Control [3.2 (2.4) vs. 2.2 (2.1); p = 0.037]. Upper-limb coordination was higher at Post-GaitWay vs. Post-Control [6.0 (4.1) vs. 3.9 (3.8); p = 0.050]. When compared to Pre-Control [3.2 (3.0)], strength was higher at Post-EAA [4.9 (3.5); p = 0.028] and at Post-GaitWay [5.2 (2.9); p = 0.015]. Overall scores were higher at Post-GaitWay [39.1 (22.2)] when compared to Pre-Control [32.4 (21.6); p = 0.003] and Post-Control [32.5 (21.9); p = 0.009]. Additionally, motor skills were maintained for 1 year following the Post-GaitWay testing session among seven participants. This is the first known study to include and demonstrate the short-term and long-term effects of a combination of EAA and brain building activities with motor proficiency in youth with ND. Clinical Trial Registration: Motor Skill Proficiency After Equine-Assisted Activities and Brain-building Tasks; www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT04158960.

Dataset Information

Effectiveness of Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapies for Improving Adaptive Behavior and Motor Function in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Publications

Effectiveness of Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapies for Improving Adaptive Behavior and Motor Function in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

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