Performance-based activities can improve autistic children's communication and interpersonal skills.
A Kent research project called Imagining Autism has found changes in behaviour of children with autism, including changes in several areas identified as deficits in autism, such as social interaction and emotion recognition.
All of the children who took part in the research, which involved taking part in performance-based activities, showed at least some improvements on at least one of the measures used to monitor change during the research, with over three quarters of them showing changes to more than one.
Just under one third of children who took part showed significant changes on a measure of social interaction. Substantial changes in children’s behaviour at home were also reported by some families.
The research was conducted in special needs schools across Kent, including one residential school run by the National Autistic Society (NAS) and funding provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Visit Imagining Autism for more information about the project.
For more information contact Katie Newton.