Fixing the mirrors: a feasibility study of the effects of dance movement therapy on young adults with autism spectrum disorder.
Seven weeks of dance-movement therapy lifted self-reported social skills and well-being in high-functioning young adults with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers ran a 7-week dance program for 16 young adults with autism. Each session used mirroring games where clients copied the therapist's movements. The team wanted to see if this would help body awareness, social skills, and well-being.
Half the group got the dance classes right away. The other half waited and served as the no-treatment control. Everyone filled out surveys before and after the 7 weeks.
What they found
The dance group said they felt better about their bodies and their social lives. They also reported higher well-being scores than the wait-list group. The study calls these results 'positive' but does not give exact numbers.
No one dropped out, and attendance was high. The authors say the program is 'feasible' for young adults with ASD.
How this fits with other research
Three big reviews agree that dance and other physical activities help kids with autism. Neuhaus et al. (2016) and Healy et al. (2018) both found medium-to-large gains in social and motor skills. Pickard et al. (2019) saw a smaller, but still real, boost in social functioning from group sports.
The 2022 TMS study by Jellina et al. seems to clash. They found no overall mirror-system deficit in adults with ASD. But their data also show that people with more severe symptoms do have weaker mirroring. That fits why dance mirroring might help some clients more than others.
Hattier et al. (2011) used theatre games instead of dance and still saw small social gains. Together these papers suggest the active ingredient is shared creative movement, not the exact art form.
Why it matters
You can add a low-cost dance group to your adult ASD program today. No special gear is needed—just a room and some music. Start with simple mirroring warm-ups and let clients lead rounds as they gain confidence. Track social initiations during and after class to see if the gains hold for your clients.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
From the 1970s on, case studies reported the effectiveness of therapeutic mirroring in movement with children with autism spectrum disorder. In this feasibility study, we tested a dance movement therapy intervention based on mirroring in movement in a population of 31 young adults with autism spectrum disorder (mainly high-functioning and Asperger's syndrome) with the aim to increase body awareness, social skills, self-other distinction, empathy, and well-being. We employed a manualized dance movement therapy intervention implemented in hourly sessions once a week for 7 weeks. The treatment group (n = 16) and the no-intervention control group (n = 15) were matched by sex, age, and symptom severity. Participants did not participate in any other therapies for the duration of the study. After the treatment, participants in the intervention group reported improved well-being, improved body awareness, improved self-other distinction, and increased social skills. The dance movement therapy-based mirroring approach seemed to address more primary developmental aspects of autism than the presently prevailing theory-of-mind approach. Results suggest that dance movement therapy can be an effective and feasible therapy approach for autism spectrum disorder, while future randomized control trials with bigger samples are needed.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2015 · doi:10.1177/1362361314522353