Mind-body exercise and self-control in autism?

Despite knowing a little something about the discipline of psychology and in particular, it's varied success/failure (delete as appropriate) when applied to a complicated condition like autism, I'll admit that I do have some difficulty in grasping certain ideas and concepts which make up the psychological research landscape.

Yin yang? @ Wikipedia 

Take for example the concept of mindfulness, which is definitely starting to be another 'big thing' when it comes to psychology stressing how the mind might be able to influence all manner of things including several physical 'frailties'. It's fascinating to me how something as simple as glorified meditation might be able to do so much.

A good example of mindfulness at work was seen in Dr Michael Mosley's recent BBC Horizon venture on 'The Truth About Personality'. Wherein the 5:2 diet (see here) was replaced by some interesting discussion on how we could all become much happier and less anxious through mindfulness and an interesting technique called cognitive bias modification (CBM). Aside from making an important mention of the concept of epigenetics and how we should be looking at the function of the genome as well as its structure, it was interesting to see Dr Mosley report some benefit from the interventions at the end of the program, measured also via more objective means over and above his subjective 'I feel better' sentiments.

This very long-winded introduction brings me to the topic of today's post on a mind-body exercise regime and autism following the publication of a study by Agnes Chan and colleagues* (open-access) who reported some success from their Chan-based mind-body exercise program on self-control (see here for the trial registration). The SFARI blog has also recently posted about this study (see here).

Before heading into the paper I should point out that this is not the first time that this type of program has been talked about with autism in mind. For example, I stumbled across this paper** by the same authorship group which talked about some potential effects from "a Shaolin-medicine-based dietary modification" which talked about removing foods which "will generate excessive internal heat and adversely affect the temper and cognitive functions" to include "ginger, garlic, green onion, spicy foods, eggs, meat, and fish". I don't really want to comment on the hows and whys of 'excessive internal heat' on autism in this post so will leave it there for now and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. I might also add that I've talked Chinese medicine and autism before on this blog as per the 'Jedi' massage (see here, lightsaber not required).

OK back to the Chan-based mind-body exercise program on self-control. The program is based on the practice of Nei Yang Gong and essentially includes "sets of slow movements that emphasize smooth, gentle, and calm movements". The authors suggest that these movement help with self-awareness and mental self-control but can also help in the reduction of stress (something all too familiar where autism is mentioned). They add that it is a slightly different program from just mindfulness and mediation. There are plenty of videos on the web illustrating the types of movements it includes.

The authors randomly allocated 46 children diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition to either the Chan-based mind-body exercise program under analysis or something called progressive muscle relaxation although only 20 kids in each trial arm completed the four-week study. Alongside measuring neuropsychological functioning, authors also ATECd the kids to pick up parent-reported behaviour changes and looked at event-related EEG results during "an inhibitory control test, namely, the Go/No-Go task".

The results: "the autistic children in the experimental group showed better self-control than those in the control group after the one-month intervention" based on the results of the neuropsychological tests. Analysis of the ATEC scores however were not so clean-cut as both groups were reported to show [variable] positive changes on the subscales (the experimental group generally however showing a more pronounced positive effect). The authors do note that when it came to looking at specific issues such as temper outbursts "the experimental group reported a significantly greater reduction" over the control group. Oh and did I mention that there were some changes on the EEG too? (bearing in mind my considerable non-expertise when it comes to this dark art).

OK, I know its tempting to look at this paper and its results and start to criticise based on things like the lack of blinding to group allocation / intervention regime and the use of the ATEC (but wait a minute...). There was also, for example, no treatment as usual group included in the study you might say. But just hold on a minute, when it comes to ascertaining medication in relation to autism and other conditions for example, on more than one occasion there has been criticism that researchers have been too over-reliant on drug vs. nothing (or placebo) over drug A vs. drug B. At least the authors in this study were able to say that their program was better than just muscle relaxation techniques. Perhaps the next study to be done would be comparing their program with something more pharmacological?

Likewise in our modern Western medical system which we all love, it is perhaps easy to rather disparagingly talk about things like 'internal heat' whilst carrying that little smirk on our faces as if 'we know better'. I don't know enough about Chinese medicine to say whether this is something real and tangible or just some ancient hand-me-down. All I can see is that the authors have made an attempt to (experimentally) bring their expertise to bear on a group of people who are probably more prone than most to issues with things like self-control and anxiety. And if it worked, well, it worked. That and I assume the fact that once one has been trained in the ways of Nei Yang Gong, it's probably going to be something that can done quite easily and certainly quite affordably in the longer term (probably also with minimum side effects I would imagine).

----------

* Chan AS. et al. A Chinese Mind-Body Exercise Improves Self-Control of Children with Autism: A Randomized Controlled Trial. PLoS ONE. 2013; 8(7): e68184. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0068184

** Chan AS. et al. A chan dietary intervention enhances executive functions and anterior cingulate activity in autism spectrum disorders: a randomized controlled trial. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2012;2012:262136. doi: 10.1155/2012/262136.

----------

Agnes S. Chan (2013). A Chinese Mind-Body Exercise Improves Self-Control of Children with Autism: A Randomized Controlled Trial PLoS ONE DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068184