The Effectiveness of Visual Pedagogy for Toothbrushing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The aim of this study was to evaluate toothbrushing effectiveness in children with mild and moderate levels of severity of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) after using visual pedagogy.

This quasi-experimental study was carried out with 30 children with ASD aged 5-17 years; 21 had mild ASD and 9 had moderate ASD. Informed consent and the subject's demographic information were obtained from caregivers. All subjects were then asked to show their toothbrushing practices, which were recorded by video. The toothbrushing ability, toothbrushing cooperation, and plaque index were evaluated before the study and at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months after visual pedagogy had been used. Results were analyzed by the Friedman test, Pearson's chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, and Mann‒Whitney U test.

Toothbrushing ability was significantly improved at all periods of follow-up. Toothbrushing cooperation and the dental plaque index were significantly better than before the study at 4 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months of follow-up. The toothbrushing ability of subjects with mild ASD was significantly better than that of subjects with moderate ASD at 4 weeks and 6 months of follow-up. The toothbrushing cooperation of the mild group was significantly better than that of the moderate group at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 3 months. There was no statistically significant reduction in the plaque index between the two groups.

Visual pedagogy is useful for improving toothbrushing effectiveness in children with mild or moderate severity ASD. However, children with moderate severity ASD take longer to improve.