The use of movement-based interventions with children diagnosed with autism for psychosocial outcomes—A scoping review

• Scoping review on movement-based intervention (MBI) targeting psychosocial outcomes.
• We reported evidence of efficacy of MBI for children with ASD on psychosocial outcomes.
• We reported on the measures used for psychosocial outcomes with children with ASD.
• We questioned the measures used to capture the complexity of psychosocial outcomes.
• We proposed possible avenues to capture the nuances of psychosocial outcomes

Over the past decade, research evidence on the sensory motor challenges associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) raises questions about the unilateral focus on psychosocial criteria for the diagnostic category and shifts attention from perspectives that focus solely on behavioral deficits towards a more embodied perspective of the spectrum. The focus on embodiment in autism research forges a link between psychosocial deficits and sensory motor challenges. Further, sensory motor actions and experiences are the foundation for cognition, emotions and communication within conceptualizations of embodiment. This unifies theoretical divisions between body and mind. This shift of perspective raises the question of whether or not there is a gap between emergent research knowledge and its implementation in practice. Thus, the aim of this scoping review was to understand the extent of research on interventions focused on the use of sensory motor based or movement based interventions (MBI) to target psychosocial outcomes for children with autism. Using a combination of a descriptive numerical analysis and a thematic analysis of fourteen studies, this scoping review provides the preliminary evidence of the efficacy of MBIs for children with ASD and questions actual research practices to measure psychosocial changes.