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 18 expert therapists (12 females- 6 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 indoor climbing for physical engagement, for sense of adventure and for sense of novelty; team sports for social engagement and for fun, dramatherapy for emotional engagement, writing your life story for cognitive engagement. 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, exercising in the swimming pool, 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.