The Psychological Impact of Leisure and Rehabilitation Activities in Children and Adolescents With Autism: A Delphi Approach

Abstract

Background The leisure-rehabilitation programs offered to children and adolescents with autism convey feelings like emotional, social, cognitive, and physical engagement, fun, adventure, and sense of novelty. Each activity however has an intrinsic power to influence the emotional pattern in different ways. Aim To define how each type of rehabilitation program can be expected to influence the psychological response di children and adolescent affected by autism. Methods We applied the Delphi procedure during a workshop with 12 expert therapists (8 females- 4 males), with the aim of achieving consensus regarding the appropriateness of 11 types of leisure-rehabilitation activities in inducing seven types of psychological responses. Results The activities with the highest potential for each psychological response were: for emotional and cognitive engagement dramatherapy, for social engagement and for fun team sports, for physical engagement and for sense of adventure indoor climbing, for sense of novelty outdoor visits to museums. The top five activities with the highest overall impact (mean overall score > 7) were in decreasing order: indoor climbing, team sports, outdoor visits to common life environments, outdoor visits to parks and gardens, and dramatherapy. Conclusions We hope that this Delphi exercise will help the carers of individuals with autism to choose and adapt possible leisure activities according to the specific needs of the subject, maximizing the potential benefit of rehabilitation.