Wafa Souissi¹, Imen Hadjkacem², Mariem Zaibi¹, Hela Ayadi², Yousr Moalla², Maamer Slimani³, Nicola Bragazzi⁴, Riadh Dahmen¹

¹Higher Institute of Sport and Physical Education of Sfax, Tunisia
²Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Hedi Chaker Hospital, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
³School of Public Health, Department of Health Sciences (DISSAL), Genoa University, 16126 Genoa, Italy
⁴Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (LIAM), Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, Toronto, Canada

Dance Movement Therapy as a Psychomotor Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Monten. J. Sports Sci. Med. 2026, 15(1), Ahead of Print | DOI: 10.26773/mjssm.260305

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of one-year dance therapy on psychomotor develop- ment in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Fourteen male children (age = 10.29 ± 1.50 years) par- ticipated in this study. They were randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 7, age = 10.29 ± 1.50 years), who were engaged in dance therapy training, or a control group (n = 7, age = 10.29 ± 1.50 years). General motor coordination, Draw-a-person, and the gesture imitation tests were used to assess subjective and objective scores, intelligence quotient (IQ), and the simple gestures of the hands and arms, respectively. Of note, both experimen- tal and control groups were also subdivided according to their ASD degree: mild (n = 4) and moderate (n = 3) ASD. The findings revealed that dance therapy training significantly enhanced general motor coordination, namely objective scores, compared with the control group (p = 0.01). For the imitation of gestures, dance therapy was as- sociated with higher simple gestures of the hands (p = 0.003) and arms (p < 0.001) scores compared to the control group. Conversely, the post-subjective scores of motor coordination and post-IQ values did not significantly differ between the overall experimental and control groups (p = 0.11 and p = 0.56, respectively). Moreover, a greater effect of dance therapy on subjective scores in children with mild ASD compared with those with moderate ASD (p = 0.03) was observed. The practice of dance therapy is an appropriate psychomotor therapy to develop visuo- spatial and motor execution in children with mild and moderate ASD, with a greater effect in children with mild ASD for subjective scores of motor coordination.

Keywords

autism, therapy, coordination, imitation, intelligence quotient

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