Effects of physical activity on debilitating behaviours in 13- to 20-year-old males with severe autism spectrum disorder

The presented study investigated the extent to which engaging in a therapeutic sporting programme in males with severe autism spectrum disorder (ASD) improves the debilitating behaviours commonly associated with ASD. Furthermore, the views of parents of the autistic participants were assessed concerning the effectiveness of the programme. Participants were eight 13- to 20-year-old males born in the United Kingdom from a school and sports college for pupils with severe learning difficulties. The selection was using volunteer sampling from the “Monday Club” initiative, run by Saracens Sports Foundation in partnership with a local school and specialist sports college. The Gilliam Autism Rating Scale, 3rd edition was administered to identify and measure the severity of ASD behaviours at four time periods namely: at programme entry as the baseline (Time 1, T1), a second time after 8 weeks (Time 2, T2), a third time after 16 weeks (Time 3, T3), and a fourth time post programme (Time 4, T4). The results showed that for the more severe cases of ASD (Autism Index >101) there was no positive change in subscale performance from T1 to T2. For milder cases (Autism Index, 71–100) there were subtle non-significant improvements on the subscale scores from T1 to T2. Of the 6 subscales at T2, emotional responses, cognitive style, and maladaptive speech approached significance at the P=0.05 level. At T3 and T4, there was also no statistically significant improvement in ASD behaviours compared to the baseline for either condition. Finally parents’ were “very satisfied” with their child’s participation in the physical activity programme.