Exploring the Performance of Self-Care and Visual Perception in Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

PURPOSE: Self-care is a foundation to develop various occupations for independence in preschool children. According to Gibson’s Theory of affordances, children who can perform self-care tasks appropriately must perceive contexts information through visual perception correctly. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often regarded as visual learners, it means that the relationships between self-care and visual perception are especially important to them. However, the performance of self-care and visual perception and their relationships have not been clearly understood among preschool children with ASD. Previous studies collected information about self-care mainly from caregivers’ report and evaluated visual perception through only motor-free or visual-motor integration instruments. This study aimed to examine the self-care performance from the opinions of the caregiver and therapist. Both motor-free and visual-motor integration visual perception instruments were administrated to preschool children. Additionally, the relationships between self-care and visual perception were investigated.

DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study. A total of 92 participants aged 48 to 78 months were recruited: 46 preschool children with ASD and 46 typically developing (TD) preschool children. Preschool children with ASD were recruited from a medical center in Taiwan. The recruitment was done through the referral of pediatric psychiatrists and pediatric neurologists. Diagnosis of additional diseases or comorbidity by specialists, with impairments or disorders, and inability to follow instructions to complete the research procedures would be excluded. TD children were recruited from public or private kindergartens in Taiwan. Children diagnosed with developmental disorders by pediatric neurologists or rehabilitation physicians or with sensory impairments were excluded.

METHOD: The Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) and Chinese Version of Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI-C) were used to measure the self-care performance of preschool children. The Test of Visual-Perceptual Skills - Third Edition (TVPS-3) and Developmental Test of Visual Perception – Third Edition (DTVP-3) were used to evaluate visual perception. Independent t-tests were used to analyze the differences in self-care and visual perception performance between the two groups. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to examine the relationship between self-care and visual perception in preschool children with ASD.

RESULTS: Preschool children with ASD had significantly lower scores on the performance of self-care (AMPS and PEDI-C) and visual perception (TVPS-3 and DTVP) compared with typically developing children. For preschool children with ASD, there were positive correlations between AMPS and DTVP-3 (r = 0.570, p < 0.01); AMPS and TVPS-3 (r = 0.507, p < 0.01); PEDI-C and DTVP-3 (r = 0.329, p < 0.05); PEDI-C and TVPS-3 (r = 0.303, p < 0.05), indicating that preschool children with ASD who had greater self-care performance when they demonstrated better visual perception skills.

CONCLUSION: The performance of self-care and visual perception in preschool children with ASD differed from TD preschool children, and positive correlations did exist between self-care and visual perception in preschool children with ASD. The results provide a valuable contribution to our understanding about the self-care and visual perception in preschool children with ASD. The relationship between self-care and visual perception of preschool children with ASD could also provide occupational therapy practitioners as a guidance on interventions for preschool children with ASD.

References

Gibson, J. J., & Gibson, J. J. (2015). The ecological approach to visual perception. New York: Psychology Press. doi: 13: 978-1848725782.

James, S., Ziviani, J., Ware, R. S., & Boyd, R. N. (2015). Relationships between activities of daily living, upper limb function, and visual perception in children and adolescents with unilateral cerebral palsy. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 57(9), 852–857. doi: 10.1111/dmcn.12715

Jasmin, E., Couture, M., Mckinley, P., Reid, G., Fombonne, E., & Gisel, E. (2008). Sensori-motor and Daily Living Skills of Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39(2), 231–241. doi: 10.1007/s10803-008-0617-z