Effects of Physical Exercise and Virtual Training on Visual Attention Levels in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

This study compared the effects of physical exercise (PE) and virtual training (VT) on the improvement of the visual attention mechanism in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). One hundred eighty-nine children with ASD were recruited from Orphan School in Liaoning Province, China. After screening, 100 children ultimately participated in the experiment. Children with ASD were randomly assigned to VT (VT, n = 34), PE (PE, n = 33) and control group (CG, n = 33). The VT group experiment was performed in a virtual environment through the game FIFA21 three times per week for 6 weeks. The PE group played physical football matches three times per week for 6 weeks. Children with ASD in the CG group did not receive VT or PE but only received psychological counseling. Visual attention of children with ASD is evaluated by using the multiple object tracking paradigm (MOT). After 6 weeks of observation, although none of the three groups saw improvements in the correct rate of ring tracking, the observations of the VT and PE groups were significant (p < 0.05) compared to the CG group in finding detection rate of probe stimulus. Through MOT tests, VT and PE improved the detection rate of probe stimulus in children with ASD. Therefore, this paper indicates that VT and PE can improve the visual attention ability of children with ASD.