Equine assisted services impact on social skills in autism spectrum disorder: A meta-analysis.

This study looked at whether horse therapy helps children with autism improve their social skills. Researchers combined results from five studies involving 240 people. They found that horse therapy significantly helped with overall social skills, communication, and understanding social situations. There were also positive trends for social awareness and motivation to interact with others, but no improvement in repetitive behaviors.

This 2023 meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of equine assisted services (EAS) on social skills in autism spectrum disorder by analyzing five randomized controlled trials with 240 participants. Using the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) as the primary outcome measure, researchers found significant beneficial effects of EAS on total social skills, social communication, and social cognition. Trends toward significance were observed for social awareness and social motivation, while no significant effects were found for autistic mannerisms. This represents the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date on EAS for autism, expanding beyond previous reviews that included only three studies and did not examine SRS outcomes.

Equine assisted services show promise as an evidence-based intervention for social skills deficits in autism, particularly for social communication and cognition. However, the limited number of studies and call for additional research suggests clinicians should consider EAS as part of a comprehensive treatment approach while awaiting further validation through larger trials.

The analysis included only five studies with 240 participants. The abstract notes that existing data are not consensual, suggesting heterogeneity in findings. The authors explicitly state that further randomized controlled trials are required to complement and expand these results.

Many studies focus on the impact of equine assisted services (EAS) on social skills in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but existing data are not consensual and the only available meta-analysis included only three studies and did not consider the social responsiveness scale (SRS). This meta-analysis aims to measure the impact of EAS on social skills in ASD. Using Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library, the means and standard deviations of every available SRS post-intervention scores in each participant group were collected from the five selected randomised controlled trials with 240 participants. An EAS significant beneficial impact was found for the total SRS score, social communication and social cognition.

A tendency to a significant impact was found for social awareness and social motivation. No significant difference was shown for autistic mannerisms. This meta-analysis shows a significant beneficial impact of EAS for several social skills in ASD. Further randomised controlled trials are required to complement these results and expand the knowledge on the field of possibilities of this care in ASD.