Brief Report: The Utility of a Golf Training Program for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Researchers ran a 6-week golf program for 46 autistic people of mixed ages. Each lesson wove in social and communication targets such as turn-taking, asking for help, and staying calm after a miss.

The team measured skills before and after the program. No control group was used.

Every skill area improved after the six weeks. Parents and coaches saw gains in talking with peers, waiting calmly, body control, and following rules.

The gains were large enough to reach statistical significance.

Howells et al. (2020) tested a similar idea with community football. They also mixed sport with social coaching for 6- to 8-year-olds. Caregivers reported fewer behavior problems, yet standard social scores did not budge. The football finding looks mixed while the golf finding looks fully positive, but the difference is in the ruler: Katherine used a formal social scale; A et al. used coach checklists.

Chester et al. (2019) ran an 8-week social-skills group plus play and added a wait-list control. Their RCT showed clear social gains, proving that sport is helpful but not required. Golf simply gives the same medicine inside a tee box instead of a classroom.

Ketcheson et al. (2017) gave preschoolers four hours of daily motor games for eight weeks and saw big motor jumps. A et al. got similar motor growth with only one hour a week, suggesting golf’s built-in focus on form and pacing may pack extra punch per minute.

You can fold social, motor, and self-regulation goals into any activity the learner already enjoys. Try running a short golf, bowling, or frisbee block this month. Track a few clear targets—requests, waiting, calm hands—before and after. You may see quick gains with little extra cost.