An interventional study of Aquatic Occupational Therapy in Autism Spectrum Disorder, sponsored by Ohio State University. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 3 Years to 12 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2024-12-13.
Sponsored by Ohio State University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
This is an aquatic occupational therapy group for children between the ages of 3-12 that have an autism diagnosis. Intervention will focus on increasing the child's safety swim skills.
Information will be collected from participants' guardians during an intake visit regarding a child's sensory processing deficits, movement abilities and exposure to swim skill instruction prior to the group. The group will provide swim instruction using the Halliwick approach to learning swim skills as well as other occupational therapy techniques such as shaping, therapeutic relationship and behavior management. Groups will have a minimum ratio of 1 staff to every 2 children, with the possibility of 1:1 ratio most days. There will be a certified lifeguard present at all times. Qualitative interviews and a follow up survey will be conducted with parents (ages 18+) to determine impact on families and individual participants. Swim skills will be tracked at each session via goal attainment scaling and daily documentation. Descriptive and correlational statistics will be completed as well as coding of interview and survey data. Participants can participate for one, 10 week session, or will have the option to participate in additional 10 week sessions until child participants top out on the WOTA or plateau in progress of swim skills.
1,727 studies on the registry are indexed under Autism Spectrum Disorder; 504 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 60 is above the median of 52 across 1,371 interventional studies indexed under Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Browse Autism Spectrum Disorder studies →Ohio State University is the lead sponsor of 640 studies on the registry; 144 are open to participants now.
Of its 60 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 45 (75%) have results posted.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion Criteria:
Group-based aquatic occupational therapy with 1:1 swim buddy for safety.
Behavioral: Aquatic Occupational Therapy
Group of 4-8 children, paired with a swim buddy. Intervention techniques including discrete teaching, motor shaping, behavioral management, therapeutic relationship and individualized goals.
Change in swim skills
Change in swim skills measured with Water Orientation Test-Alyn; higher scores mean a better outcome. Minimum score is 0, maximum is 27
Time frame: baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention
Change in individualized goals
Goal Attainment Scaling to track change in other swim performance skills not measured above. Scores for each goal range from -2 (regression) to +2 (2 levels more than anticipated). A higher score indicates improvement.
Time frame: immediately after the intervention
Change in parent comfort
Custom questionnaire using 5 point Likert scale regarding comfort and importance of water participation for the child. A higher score indicates increased parent comfort, which is the desirable direction.
Time frame: baseline pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention
Parent perspective
qualitative interview regarding parent perspective of the the intervention
Time frame: one time after 8 hours of intervention have been provided to the child participant
Plan to share: No — De-identified data may be shared with other researchers.
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
This study is completed, as verified in Dec 2024. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
Get an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.
Sign in to followQuestions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.
Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.
Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.
Ohio State University