Effects of Therapeutic Horseback-Riding Program on Social and Communication Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Shihui Chen, Yanjie Zhang, Mengxian Zhao (), Xiru Du, Yongtai Wang and Xiaolei Liu
Additional contact information
Shihui Chen: Department of Kinesiology, Texas A&M University, Texarkana, TX 75503, USA
Yanjie Zhang: Physical Education Unit, School of Humanities and Social Science, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518172, China
Mengxian Zhao: School of Physical Education, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
Xiru Du: College of Sport Arts, Guangzhou Sport University, Guangzhou 510075, China
Yongtai Wang: College of Health Sciences and Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, USA
Xiaolei Liu: Chinese Traditional Regimen Exercise Intervention Research Center, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-13

Abstract: Animal-assisted therapy has become a fast-growing and effective approach for remediating core impairments of children with ASD; however, recent systematic review studies on the effects of AAT in children with ASD have some limitations, including referral to a variety of animal-assisted interventions rather than to horseback-riding therapy alone and the absence of any meta-analysis in systematic reviews. A complete systematic review of the studies that describe the use of THR as an intervention is needed to specifically target the core impairments of children with ASD. The purpose of this study was to employ the systematic review method to synthesize research findings regarding the effects of THR programs on the social interaction and communication skills of children with ASD. We conducted a structured search in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We searched for potentially relevant studies in five databases (Web of Science, PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and SPORTDiscus) from inception until February 2022. In addition, we manually searched the bibliographies of the included studies to find articles that might otherwise have been missed. We considered articles eligible or ineligible if they satisfied specific inclusion or exclusion criteria. Our results showed that the THR program is an effective direct and alternative therapeutic program that can considerably improve the social behaviors and communication skills of children with ASD and can effectively impact autistic impairments in areas such as social awareness, social cognition, social motivation, and social communication. These findings are in line with those of previous studies; however, we did not find statistical evidence of any effect of THR on the autistic behaviors of irritability, stereotypy, and inappropriate speech. In conclusion, the findings produced by this meta-analysis study provide evidence that THR programs can considerably improve the social behaviors and communication skills of children with ASD.

Keywords: animal-assisted therapy; children; ASD; meta-analysis; social behavior; communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/14449/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/14449/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:21:p:14449-:d:963091

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().