Effects of improved creative play interventions on social communication, behavioral, and cognitive function in children with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled trial.

Researchers studied 72 children with autism aged 3-8 years to see if adding creative play activities to regular therapy helped. Half the children received regular therapy only, while the other half also participated in creative play sessions for 12 weeks. Children who had the creative play activities showed better social skills, communication, thinking abilities, and fine motor skills compared to those who only had regular therapy.

This single-blind randomized controlled trial examined the effects of improved creative play interventions combined with routine rehabilitation in 72 children with autism spectrum disorder aged 3-8 years. Participants were randomly assigned to either routine rehabilitation alone or routine rehabilitation plus creative play intervention for 12 weeks. The intervention group demonstrated significantly greater improvements in social communication (SRS-2), autism-specific behaviors (all ATEC subscales), and cognitive domains including fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and verbal cognition (C-PEP-3). However, no significant differences were found for aberrant behaviors or overall autism severity measures, indicating selective benefits across developmental domains.

Creative play interventions show promise as adjunctive treatments for autism, particularly for social communication and cognitive development. Clinicians should consider incorporating structured creative play activities alongside routine rehabilitation. The selective benefits suggest intervention may be most effective for specific developmental domains rather than global autism severity.

Single-blind design may introduce bias. Limited to 12-week intervention period. Sample size of 72 children, while adequate for an RCT, represents a single study requiring replication. No long-term follow-up data provided to assess sustainability of improvements.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit deficits in social communication, repetitive behaviors, and cognitive delays. Play-based interventions have shown effectiveness in the treatment of ASD. This study aims to investigate the impact of improved creative play interventions combined with routine rehabilitation on these domains in autistic children. This single-blind randomized controlled trial enrolled 72 children aged 3-8 years with ASD.

Participants were randomized to the control group ( = 36; routine rehabilitation) or intervention group ( = 36; routine rehabilitation + improved creative play intervention). Assessments were conducted at baseline and post-intervention (week 12) using the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC), Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC), Childhood Autism Rating Scale-2 (CARS-2), Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (SRS-2), and the Chinese version of Psychoeducational Profile-3 (C-PEP-3) to measure changes in social skills, behavior, and cognitive functioning. The intervention group showed greater improvements than the control group in the SRS-2 T-score ( < 0.001). No significant group × time interactions ( > 0.05) were found on aberrant behavior (ABC) or overall autism severity (CARS-2).

Significant advantages in the intervention group were also observed across all four ATEC subscales and the total score ( < 0.001) compared with the control group. The improved creative play intervention group achieved significantly greater gains in fine motor, hand-eye coordination, cognitive performance, and verbal cognition domains of C-PEP-3, with particularly large differences in cognitive performance ( < 0.001). The improved creative play intervention combined with routine rehabilitation significantly enhances social, behavioral, and cognitive outcomes in ASD children.