A Study On The Effect Of Small Basketball Peer Intervention On Autistic Children’s Sports Skills And Social Communication Ability

Objectives:The goal of this study was to examine the social impairment of autistic children,compare the effects of peer intervention and conventional teaching on social skills,symptom level,and motor skills,investigate the intervention effects of the peer intervention method on interactive behaviors of autistic children,and assess the improvement status on social interaction ability in order to enhance the motor skills and social skills of autistic children and improve their quality of life.Methods:Twenty-six kids with autism were enlisted in Nanchang via the Star Luck Together Autism Motor Intervention Camp’s public We Chat page,and 20 boys with autism between the ages of 6 and 12 who scored higher than 67 on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale were selected as test subjects.The experimental group(10children)and the control group(10 children)were randomly divided,and the experimental group received 8-week elementary basketball teaching in the form of1-on-1 volunteers,while the control group received routine teaching from 4experienced assistant teachers.Thesocial skills,ABC scale and motor skills scores of the two groups were compared before and after the intervention by independent sample t-test;the paired sample t-test was used to compare before and after the intervention,and the observation method was used to record the number of interactive behaviors between the experimental group and the control group during the intervention,and to analyze the changes of social skills and social abilities of autistic children in peer intervention Situation.Results:(1)After the intervention,there were significant differences(P<0.05)between the experimental and control groups in total scores and scores on all five dimensions when compared between groups;there were significant(P<0.01)decreases in sensory ability,interaction ability,motor ability and total score when compared within the experimental group,and in interaction ability,motor ability,language ability and total score when compared within the control group(P<0.01).(2)After the intervention,the post-test scores of large muscle movement and body movement category and object control category in the experimental group and the control group were significantly improved compared with the pre-test(P<0.05),and the post-test scores of large muscle movement and body movement category and object control category in the experimental group and the control group were not significantly different(P>0.05).(3)After the intervention,left-and right-handed in situ dribbling,1-minute shooting,and integrated dribbling improved significantly(P<0.05)in both the control and experimental groups compared to the pre-intervention period.(4)After the intervention,social tendency,social communication,social participation and total score of the experimental group improved significantly(P<0.05)compared with those before the intervention,while there was no significant difference between the control group and the experimental group(P>0.05);the differences of social tendency,social communication,social participation and total score were significant(P<0.05)compared between the control group and the experimental group in the post-test group.(5)After the intervention,the target behavior scores of behavioral imitation,requesting help,making comments,and getting attention increased in both the experimental and control groups,and the target behavior scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group.Conclusion:(1)Both small basketball peer intervention instruction and regular small basketball instruction improved the behavioral ability,gross motor ability and basketball-specific motor skills of children with autism.(2)Small basketball peer intervention can effectively improve the social cognition,self-regulation and social communication skills of children with autism,and positively affect the social skills of children with autism.(3)Both small basketball peer intervention and regular small basketball instruction could improve the social interaction behavior of children with autism,but the effect of small basketball peer intervention was more significant.