Effects of Massage on Self-regulatory Difficulties, Tactile and Oral Abnormalities, and Parenting Stress in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that about 1 in every 44 children between the ages of 4 and 8 years old had been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Complementary interventions such as massage are crucial for the improvement of the health outcomes of ASD patients, such as abnormal sensory response; Autism Behavior Checklist; parenting stress, self-regulatory difficulties, social, language, and communication abilities; tactile or oral abnormalities; Vineland daily living skills; Vineland socialization; Childhood Autism Rating Scale; Preschool Language Scale 5th Edition (PLS-5) auditory communication; and PLS-5 expressive communication. Purpose: We aim to systematically investigate the effects of different types of massage on self-regulatory difficulties, tactile and oral abnormalities, and parenting stress in children with ASD. Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and Web of Science were scoured from their inception through November 15, 2022. Research comparing massage efficacy in children with ASD to other methods or a control group was included. For randomized controlled trials (RCTs), we utilized the Cochrane risk of bias tool; and for cohort studies, we used the tool developed by the National Institutes of Health. Meta-analysis was carried out with Review Manager 5.4. For our continuous data, we calculated the mean difference (MD) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Results: We included 10 studies with a total number of 485 children with autism. Our analysis showed a significant decrease in the massage group regarding self-regulatory difficulties (MD = -9.15; 95% CI (-13.69 to -4.60), p < 0.0001). Also, the massage group showed a significant decrease in tactile or oral abnormalities compared with the control group (MD = -4.83; 95% CI (-7.86 to -1.80), p = 0.002). Moreover, parenting stress significantly decreased in the massage group compared to the control group (MD = -4.31; 95% CI (-7.02 to -1.61), p = 0.002). Conclusion: Qigong and traditional Thai massage improved self-regulatory difficulties and decreased tactile or oral abnormalities in children with autism. Moreover, they decreased parenting stress. However, we need more RCTs with larger sample sizes with high quality to assess the different types of massage effects on autistic children and produce more valid results. So, Qigong and traditional Thai massage could be used as a complement to educational and training interventions in children with autism.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.008 | 0.022 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.019 | 0.030 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".