نبذة مختصرة : Background: Young adults with autism often have problems with body awareness, also acknowledged by physiotherapists. This may interfere with various physiological and psychological responses, expressed in reduced movement quality. Basic Body Awareness Therapy (BBAT) may be suitable to address these difficulties, to enhance body awareness and movement quality to manage everyday life. Body Awareness Scale and Movement Quality (BAS MQ) is an outcome measure with acceptable measurement properties in people with autism, that could be used to evaluate BBAT.Objectives: To evaluate if BBAT may be effective for improving movement quality in people with autism.Methods: People with autism, 15-30 years were randomized to either an individual BBAT intervention of 12 weekly sessions and treatment-as-usual, or to a control group receiving treatment-as-usual only. Winsteps transformed data of BAS MQ at baseline and post-intervention were used to analyze changes in movement quality for each group.Results: The preliminary results indicate significant improvements in BAS MQ for 7 out of 28 participants in the intervention group, while none had deteriorated. In the control group, there was no significant changes. Three participants discontinued participation due to high anxiety from travelling to and from the sessions. Conclusions: The preliminary results indicate that BBAT can enhance movement quality, in line with previous findings from other groups, such as in psychiatric and pain interventions. This is the first study of BBAT in people with autism, and therefore there is no study to compare with. The special needs in autism require being acknowledged in all service delivery. The preliminary result suggests that BBAT may be a method to improve movement quality in people with autism. Further clinical trials of BBAT should be carried out to investigate possible impacts on everyday functioning.
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