Efficacy of physiotherapy with occupational and speech therapy for improving physical & behavioral status among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD): an assessor blinded randomized clinical trial.

Children with autism spectrum disorder often have combined physical and behavioral needs, which raises the question of whether combining physiotherapy with occupational and speech therapy works better than a single-discipline approach. This trial, conducted in Bangladesh, compared two groups of children over a six-week program, measuring physical status with a modified quality-of-life scale and behavioral status with a standardized autism rating tool. Children who received the combined program showed statistically significant improvements in both physical and behavioral scores, while the comparison group did not show significant within-group change, and the difference between groups also reached statistical significance. This suggests a multidisciplinary approach may offer added benefit, though the trial was small, conducted at a single institution, and the two groups differed somewhat at baseline in age and body mass index, which limits how confidently the results can be generalized.

If your child has autism spectrum disorder, you may wonder whether combining different types of therapy, like physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy together, helps more than one type alone. A small trial in Bangladesh looked at this by comparing two groups of children with autism over six weeks, checking both physical wellbeing and behavioral patterns before and after treatment. The children who received the combined therapy program showed meaningful improvements in both areas, while the other group did not show a statistically significant change.

The combined group also came out ahead when directly compared to the other group. This is encouraging for the idea that pairing therapies together might help more than single approaches, but the study was small, done at one center, and the two groups of children were not perfectly matched at the start in age and body size.

That means more research is needed before drawing firm conclusions about what works best.

This is a summary of research, not medical advice. Talk to your own healthcare provider about anything affecting your care.

This assessor-blinded randomized trial enrolled seventy children with autism spectrum disorder at a single institute in Bangladesh, comparing a combined physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy program against a comparator group over six weeks. Outcomes were physical status via a modified SF-36 and behavioral status via GARS-3, analyzed with nonparametric tests (Mann-Whitney U for between-group, Wilcoxon signed-rank for within-group) given median and interquartile range reporting. Group A (combined intervention) showed statistically significant within-group improvement in both physical and behavioral scores (p<0.01), whereas Group B's within-group changes were not statistically significant.

The between-group comparison favored Group A for both outcomes (p<0.01). Baseline imbalances in age (10.66 vs 9.17 years) and BMI (21.86 vs 19.53 kg/m²) between groups are notable and were not addressed via adjustment in the abstract, raising questions about confounding. The sample size is modest, the trial is single-center, and no adverse event data are reported, so safety cannot be commented on.

These findings support further investigation of multidisciplinary rehabilitation models but do not yet establish which specific therapy component drives benefit or how baseline differences may have influenced outcomes.