ArticleFrontiers in psychology2025
Effects of gymnastics exercises on executive function in children with autism spectrum disorder aged 6 to 9 years: a pilot study of a randomized controlled trial.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effects of exercise interventions on executive function in autism spectrum disorder: a three-level meta-analytic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Comparative efficacy of executive function interventions for Chinese children with neurodevelopmental disorders: A network meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- The influence of chronic exercise intervention on the executive function of children with neurodevelopmental disorders: a meta-analysis.Frontiers in neurologyPooled it
- Gut bacterial characteristics in children with autism spectrum disorder according to symptom severity: a cross-sectional study.BMC microbiology · 2026Observational
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
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Abstract
Objective: To explore the improvement effects of 12-week gymnastics exercises on executive function (including inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility) in children aged 6 to 9 years with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and to provide a basis for motor interventions in ASD children. Study design: A randomized controlled trial (RCT) design was adopted. Methods: Twenty-four ASD children aged 6-9 years from a special school in Chenghua District, Chengdu, were selected and randomly divided into an experimental group (12 cases) and a control group (12 cases). The experimental group received gymnastics exercises (covering movements such as walking, running, crawling, tumbling, and jumping) 3 times a week for 40 min each time, while the control group maintained routine daily activities. Before and after the intervention, the day-night Stroop task, self-ordered pointing task, and Wisconsin card sorting test were used to assess inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, respectively. Independent samples t-tests and paired samples t-tests were performed using SPSS 29.0 to analyze intergroup and intragroup differences. Results: After the intervention, the scores of inhibitory control and working memory in the experimental group were significantly higher than those before the intervention (both Conclusion: 12-week gymnastics exercises can effectively improve the executive function of 6-9-year-old children with ASD, and can be used as an effective motor intervention for ASD children.
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