The effectiveness of sensory-motor integration exercises on balance performance in children with autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder that causes failure in communication, social interaction and stereotyped behaviors. The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of sensory-motor integration exercises on balance performance in children with autism spectrum disorder. The quasi-experimental research design was pre-test and post-test with a control group. The statistical population of the research was all the students of Rasht who were studying in the academic year of 1402-1403. The sample consisted of 30 children (boys and girls) who were selected by the available sampling method and based on the entry and exit criteria of the study and randomly assigned to two groups of 15 people. The children of the experimental group were subjected to an intervention with a package of sensory-motor integration exercises for 12 sessions of 45 minutes, while the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were analyzed by multivariate and univariate covariance analysis methods in SPSS 25 software. The research findings showed that sensory-motor integration exercises improve balance performance in children with autism spectrum disorder (P<0.001). In general, it can be said that the desired intervention has improved the child's deficiency in balance performance by affecting the improvement of sensory coherence and eliminating the problems related to less or more sensitivity than the sensory limit; Therefore, it is suggested to use the intervention program used in this research to improve the balance performance of children with autism spectrum disorder.