Exergaming as a Behavior Reduction Intervention for Autistic Adolescents with Self-Stimulatory Behaviors

Abstract

Many individuals with autism engage in maladaptive self-stimulatory behaviors, which can impede their ability to learn and attend to task and can be socially stigmatizing when interacting with others. Physical exercise and mental tasks which improve executive control have each separately been shown to reduce self-stimulatory behaviors. The effectiveness of exergaming, which combines physical and mental exercise simultaneously, as a behavior reduction intervention is examined in this study. The study presented in this paper uses a single case experimental design with three participants. Participants were adolescent males with autism between the ages of 17-21 who engage in frequent self-stimulatory behavior. Each participant took part in a traditional exercise intervention, defined as walking on a treadmill, and an exergame intervention, defined as Just Dance 4 on Xbox 360 Kinect, in an A-B-A-B sequential design. Occurrences of their selfstimulatory behaviors were observed and recorded before, during, and after each intervention session. Results demonstrated that behavior frequencies were reduced for each participant after both intervention conditions and that behavior frequencies were more drastically reduced after the exergame intervention than after the traditional exercise intervention for each participant. Limitations and future directions of the research are discussed, as are the implications of integrating exergaming into a daily routine for behavior reduction.