Autistic Children Skill Acquisition In Sport: An Experimental Study

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a growth-neural disorder. One of the opening problems in ASD researches, is revealing the ability of autistic people in sport skill acquisition. The matter is addressed in this paper. In this regard, the learning performance of 10 autistic students in initial forward movement of tennis has been evaluated compared to 10 normal students. The subjects have been trained for 5 sessions. Motions have been recorded using a motion analysis device equipped with 8 cameras. The rotational angles of hand and shoulder have been calculated in order to describe motions entirely and individually in each marker. Mean and variance of 3 groups of mentors, normal and autistic students have been measured. According to the T-test results, autistic students outperform the normal ones. The average difference between the autism group and the coach is about 40% proportion of the average difference between the normal group and the coach. The results would be due to the innate ability of autistic people in doing repetitive movements.