Effects of Yoga on Autism Symptoms

Complimentary Therapies in Clinical Practice published research on the effectiveness of yoga training program on the severity of autism. The study consisted of 29 children (ages 7-15 years) with high functioning autism. The participants were randomly assigned to the yoga treatment group (received 24 sessions of yoga training over 8 weeks) or the control group. Parents were not aware whether their child was in the yoga treatment or control group. Parents or caregivers completed the autism treatment evaluation checklist (ATEC) at the beginning and the end of the intervention. Read more about the ATEC here. View the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist here.

The results indicated that:

yoga poses had a significant effect on the following subscores of ATEC: sociability, cognitive/awareness, and health/physical behavior.
there was no significant effect of yoga poses on the speech/language/communication subscores of the ATEC.

The researchers concluded that a yoga training program may help to reduce the severity of symptoms in children with autism.

Reference: Sotoodeh, M. S., Arabameri, E., Panahibakhsh, M., Kheiroddin, F., Mirdoozandeh, H., & Ghanizadeh, A. (2017). Effectiveness of yoga training program on the severity of autism. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 28, 47-53.

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