An Analysis of the Gross Motor Skills of Children Aged 3-6 Years With Autism Spectrum Disorder in Comparison With Their Typically Developing Peers

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the motor skill levels of children aged 3-6 years with Autism spectrum dis-order (ASD) in comparison with their typically devel-oping (TD) peers and to reveal their needs for motor support programs. The research group consisted of 88 participants aged 3-6 years, including 43 children (40 boys and 3 girls) diagnosed with ASD attending spe-cial education and rehabilitation institutions, and 45 TD children (23 boys and 22 girls) receiving pre-school education in a private institution (ASD=57.4 months, +/- 9.32 - TD=59.06 months, +/- 8.61). The Peabody Devel-opmental Motor Scale-2 (PDMS-2) and the Turkish Ver-sion of the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-2 (GARS-2-TV) were used as data-collection tools in the study. The Mann-Whitney U test was used for the two-group com-parisons of the parameters that did not exhibit normal distribution in the analysis of the data. The Spearman correlation analysis was applied to determine the relationship between the variables. The significance was evaluated at the p<0.05 level. As a result of the research, the balance, locomotor and manipula-tive skills and total gross motor scores of the children with ASD were found to be lower than those of the TD children (p<0.05). In addition, it was observed that there was a significant correlation between GARS-2 -TV scores and PDMS-2 scores of the children with ASD (p<0.05).