Aquatic Therapy for ASD

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Interventions: Behavioral: Aquatic Occupational Therapy

• Registration Number: NCT05092321
• Lead Sponsor: Ohio State University

Brief Summary

This is an aquatic occupational therapy group for children between the ages of 3-12 that have an autism diagnosis. Intervention will focus on increasing the child's safety swim skills.

Detailed Description

Information will be collected from participants' guardians during an intake visit regarding a child's sensory processing deficits, movement abilities and exposure to swim skill instruction prior to the group. The group will provide swim instruction using the Halliwick approach to learning swim skills as well as other occupational therapy techniques such as shaping, therapeutic relationship and behavior management. Groups will have a minimum ratio of 1 staff to every 2 children, with the possibility of 1:1 ratio most days. There will be a certified lifeguard present at all times. Qualitative interviews and a follow up survey will be conducted with parents (ages 18+) to determine impact on families and individual participants. Swim skills will be tracked at each session via goal attainment scaling and daily documentation. Descriptive and correlational statistics will be completed as well as coding of interview and survey data. Participants can participate for one, 10 week session, or will have the option to participate in additional 10 week sessions until child participants top out on the WOTA or plateau in progress of swim skills.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2021-09-14
• Study First Submitted: 2021-09-16
• Study First Submitted QC: 2021-10-12
• Study First Posted: 2021-10-25
• Primary Completion: 2024-08-31
• Study Completion: 2024-08-31
• Status Verified: 2024-12
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-12-11
• Last Update Posted: 2024-12-13

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 60

Inclusion Criteria

• pre-existing diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder from a medical professional
• family interest in swimming

Exclusion Criteria

• ventilation system for breathing such as trachea not capped

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: SINGLE_GROUP

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Aquatic Occupational Therapy	Aquatic Occupational Therapy	Group-based aquatic occupational therapy with 1:1 swim buddy for safety.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Parent perspective	one time after 8 hours of intervention have been provided to the child participant	qualitative interview regarding parent perspective of the the intervention
Change in swim skills	baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention	Change in swim skills measured with Water Orientation Test-Alyn; higher scores mean a better outcome. Minimum score is 0, maximum is 27
Change in parent comfort	baseline pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention	Custom questionnaire using 5 point Likert scale regarding comfort and importance of water participation for the child. A higher score indicates increased parent comfort, which is the desirable direction.
Change in individualized goals	immediately after the intervention	Goal Attainment Scaling to track change in other swim performance skills not measured above. Scores for each goal range from -2 (regression) to +2 (2 levels more than anticipated). A higher score indicates improvement.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

The Ohio State University; 🇺🇸 Columbus, Ohio, United States