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Research clearly indicates a relationship between motor and social skill development in children with ASD (MacDonald et al., 2011:42; MacDonald et al., 2013:279). Therefore, improved motor skills should result in improved social skills.

After a 12-week group intervention programme involving motor skill activities, the current study found no statistically significant difference over time between the experimental and control groups. According to the parent- and teacher-responses, however, both the experimental and the control group showed a small improvement in their total social competency score points from pre- to post- test. The SRS-2 is a subjective assessment, which may have affected the results as it only reflects the

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opinions of the parents and teachers regarding the social competency of the relevant child. These results show that the 12-week group intervention programme could have improved the total social skill competency if there was maybe a larger sample size, if social skills were taught throughout the intervention programme and if the intervention occurred over a longer period of time. Other studies have, however, found that children with ASD improved in social functioning after participating in activities involving movement, with others in a group over a short period (Bass et al., 2009:1262,1265,1266; MacDonald et al., 2011:42; Pan et al., 2011:493,494,495). Therefore, future research needs to investigate the effects of a longitudinal group intervention involving the teaching of not only motor skills, but also social skills in a larger group of children with ASD.

Social awareness

No significant improvements in social awareness were shown over time between either group in the current study, indicating that the intervention had no significant effect over time according to both parent- and teacher-responses. However, there was a difference between the teacher and parent scores from pre- to post-test. The parent response indicated that the control group slightly improved in their social awareness score points compared to the experimental group, and according to the teacher response, the experimental group improved and the control group declined in score points from pre- to post test in social awareness skills.

These results indicate the importance of obtaining different points of view. Social awareness may not have been improved significantly, because the intervention did not specifically aim at improving social awareness as an independent factor, social skills were not taught, the sample size was small and the intervention was only 12-weeks long. There has also been no research done targeting specific social awareness skills and the researcher was not able to find any comparable studies which showed that motor skill interventions affect social awareness.

Future research may want to explore the use of motor interventions which specifically target social awareness skills.

Social cognition

The current study, unfortunately did not find significant intervention effects with regards to social cognition between the experimental and control groups over time. Thus, the intervention had no important effect on the social cognition skills of participants. Yet again, the parental reports showed that the control group improved slightly and the experimental group decreased in social cognition skills, but this was not statistically significant. The teachers reported that the experimental group

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improved and the control group decreased in social cognition skills from pre- to post-test, this, however, was also not significant. These results indicate that the 12-week intervention showed no benefits toward improved social cognition from pre- to post-test which may be due to the small sample size, the short intervention period or the fact that social cognitive skills were not taught during the intervention period.

Motor programmes have not yet specifically target social cognitive skills. Gallese (2006:8), however, reports that there seems to be a link between the sensory-motor system and social cognition. Therefore, further research investigating the effects of motor, specifically sensory-motor programmes on the social cognition of persons with ASD needs to be conducted.

Social communication

There were no significant effect shown between the experimental and control groups over time according to the parent- and the teacher-responses. Therefore, the 12-week group intervention caused no improvements in social communication skills. Parental reports indicated that the control group showed slight improvements in social communication, but the experimental group did not. Teachers, however, reported that both groups improved slightly in social communication. This may be due to the 12-week intervention programme, where the children were given the opportunity to naturally socialize during group activities. The non-significant results may be due to the short intervention period, the small sample size or the fact that social communication skills were not a specific target during the group intervention programme. Ventola et al. (2014:3,5), on the other hand found that after children participated in a pivotal response treatment (PRT) programme, social communication skills improved. This PRT treatment programme is a naturalistic treatment approach which involves mechanisms which help to improve a child’s social motivation through the use of play-based sessions. The sessions had children playing with toys such as balls and play-dough, which contributed to fine and gross motor development. Therefore, if children are provided with opportunities to interact socially through motor play, social communication skills may improve. This study, however, was conducted on younger children over a longer period of time, which could be the reason for the positive results.

Social motivation

No statistically significant difference was found between the experimental and control groups from pre- to post-test in social motivation according to both teacher- and parent-responses. Although not significant, both groups did, however, show a marginal improvement in their social motivation score

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points according to both responses which indicates that the 12-week intervention programme may have had a positive effect on this social skill. Significant results may have been found if the small sample size was larger, the intervention period was longer or specific social motivational skills were a target.

No research literature which focused on improving social motivation through intervention was found.

Restricted interests and repetitive behaviours

Regarding restricted interests and repetitive behaviour, there was no significant difference observed over time between groups for both parent- and teacher-responses. The parent-response, however, revealed that both groups performed better at post-test, by improving slightly in score points. The teachers, however, did report that the experimental group showed improved restricted interests and repetitive behaviours which were not significant and the control group decreased. This indicates that the intervention had no effect on the restricted interests and repetitive behaviour of children with ASD.

The researcher struggled to find comparable studies using motor interventions to reduced restricted interests and repetitive behaviours. Nuzzolo-Gomez et al. (2002:85), however, did find that when children were taught to play with a toy, that these behaviours were decreased. Therefore, providing children with opportunities to participate in other types of play may in fact reduce these behaviours. Thus, future research should examine different interventions aimed at improving the repetitive behaviours associated with ASD.