Effect of a Selected Physical Exercise on the Development of Displacement Movement Skills in Highly Functional Autistic Children

Background: The study is about to examine the effect of the selective physical exercises on the development of displacement skills in High Function Autistic (HFA) children.

Materials and Methods: In this research, 10 children (7.9±1.4 years) among of 33 children with HFA in Sahr-e-Kord city (in Iran) based on their pre-test scores randomly were selected. The measuring tool was Test of Gross Motor Development-2000 (TGMD-2). Selected motor program (SPARK motor program) in this research includes motor strengthening activities, games and sports for children that were performed for 12 sessions by our subjects. Normal distribution of data checked by K-S test and appropriate statistical Levine's and ANOVA tests (dependent and independent types) were used for compare mean values (α=0.05).

Results: Twelfth sessions of selected physical exercises training in experiment group made significant differences in some research variables but it was not the case for the control group. There were significant differences in running (p=0.002), trotting (p=0.08), jumping (p=0.002) and gliding (p=0.004) and there were non-significant differences in hop (p=0.035) and leaping (p=0.02).

Conclusion: According to the results of this research we suggest that the selected physical exercise programs that derived from SPARK motor program can improve displacement motor skills in children with HFA.