The influence of visual supports and motivation on motor performance of the MABC-2 for Chinese school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder.
Add simple visual supports during motor assessments to get better ball and balance scores from kids with ASD.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave the MABC-2 motor test to Chinese school-age kids with autism.
They tried three setups: plain test, test plus pictures, and test plus prizes.
Then they compared the scores to see which setup helped most.
What they found
Ball and balance scores went up a little when picture cues were added.
Prizes alone did not change any scores.
Visual supports helped; extra motivation did not.
How this fits with other research
Bao et al. (2017) saw the same lift on the TGMD-3 when they added visual supports.
Adkins et al. (1997) found prizes did raise academic test scores for kids with autism.
The new motor result seems to clash with that older finding, but the tests were different.
Grahame et al. (2015) already ruled visual supports as evidence-based, so our data just adds another check mark.
Why it matters
When you test motor skills, hand the child a quick picture strip or visual schedule.
It takes one minute and can give a truer picture of what they can do.
Skip the extra prizes for this kind of test; they do not pay off.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The influences of including visual supports and strategies to increase motivation for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in motor assessments were examined. 97 children with ASD and 117 age-matched typically developing (TD) children performed the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition (MABC-2) under traditional, visual support, motivation, and visual support plus motivation protocols. Results showed that children with ASD elicited lower MABC-2 scores than TD children. Moreover, in children with ASD, the visual support protocol, but not the motivation protocol, produced higher scores on ball and balance skills than the traditional protocol. These findings indicated that children with ASD were developmentally delayed in motor skills; however, their performance may be improved by including visual supports in motor assessments.
, 2021 · doi:10.1038/s41598-021-95155-8