Can manual therapies have a positive impact on health outcomes for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)? According to a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork, traditional massage, qigong massage, and Thai massage can not only improve sensory response and tactile or oral abnormalities for children with ASD, but they also show positive impacts on the child’s social, language, and communication abilities.
Researchers who conducted this review believe interventions such as massage are crucial for the improvement of the health outcomes of ASD patients—a population that totals approximately 1 in 36 US children.1 “The evidence for the effectiveness and safety of massage for autism is limited, and more research is needed to confirm the benefits and optimal protocols of massage for this population,” the study’s authors wrote. “Also, published literature had a different effect size regarding the effects of massage on autistic children. So, we decided to do a systematic review and meta-analysis to resolve this conflict.”
Their research, “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,” looked at 10 studies with a total number of 485 children with autism, including ASD, Kanner’s syndrome, and/or Asperger’s syndrome. The age range for study participants was 3–6 years old. Both randomized control trials and cohort studies using massage for children with autism were considered eligible for this study.
What’s defined as massage became an important question in the review. Qigong massage, based on the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, was the primary modality used in the 10 studies eventually included in this review. Other manual therapies included traditional Thai massage and general massage therapy.
Analysis of these 10 studies showed that children in the massage groups had a significant decrease in self-regulatory difficulties, as well as a significant decrease in tactile and oral abnormalities, compared with those in the control groups. Even the factor of “parenting stress” significantly decreased with those in the massage groups.
The authors concluded that massage can help children with forms of ASD, however, more randomized controlled trials with larger sample sizes are needed to assess different types of massage effects on autistic children, with the hopes of getting more generalizable and directly comparable results.
Read the full systematic review and meta-analysis at https://ijtmb.org/index.php/ijtmb/article/view/1079/1157.
Notes
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Data and Statistics on Autism Spectrum Disorder,” accessed January 2025, www.cdc.gov/autism/data-research/index.html.