Adaptive yoga for psychological health of children having autism spectrum disorder and with intellectual disability: single case experimental design

Sci Rep. 2025 May 26;15(1):18360. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-02368-2.

ABSTRACT

Children with multiple disabilities have developmental issues in psychological domains. Adaptive yoga tailored to individual abilities promises positive results on children with special needs. This study applies multiple baseline single-case experimental design (SCED) to establish functional relationship between yoga and psychological health of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID). A multiple baseline SCED (AB1B2), with phases (A) baseline without intervention, (B1) intervention in the institute with a yoga teacher and caregiver, and (B2) intervention at home with the caregiver. The experiment was replicated across six children aged 7-12 years with mild ASD and ID. The study assessed the impact of a 180-day adaptive yoga intervention on twelve parameters across cognitive, behavioural, and emotional domains. Assessments were administered using the Indian Scale for Assessment of Autism (ISAA) and Behavioural Assessment Scales for Indian Children with Mental Retardation (BASIC-MR) tools. The study involved caregivers, yoga teacher, and clinical psychologists. The visual analysis established the functional effect of yoga intervention. The effectiveness of impact was supplemented by percentages of non-overlapping pairs and Cohen’s d shows moderate to significant impact among all the participants in at least three instances across psychological domains. The experiment establishes both internal and external validity.Trial registration CTRI/2021/08/035389; DoR: 04/08/2021.

PMID:40419562 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-02368-2