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Developing a Toothbrushing Visual Pedagogy (TBVP) for Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

Visual pedagogy and social stories have been widely used to assist children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in learning various skills. A toothbrushing visual pedagogy (TBVP) was developed adapting existing toothbrushing social stories for children with ASD. This TBVP consists of 13 toothbrushing steps with scripts describing the toothbrushing technique. To evaluate its feasibility, a review panel was formed to provide feedback on the TBVP and three other published toothbrushing social stories. Effectiveness of the TBVP was further evaluated among 119 preschool children with ASD with significant improvements in toothbrushing skills observed at 3-month and 6-month follow-ups. It is concluded that TBVP is a feasible and an effective educational means that assists children with ASD in learning toothbrushing skills.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to give many thanks to the children and parents who participated in this study. And we also appreciate the teachers, nurses and social workers in the Special Child Care Centres Hong Kong for their time and efforts spent in this study. Last but not least, we would like to thank all the people who contributed in this study, including the panel specialists, technicians, DSAs and librarians.

Funding

The work described was supported by the General Research Fund (GRF) from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. 17116014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Paediatric Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Rennan Yanlin Du, Phoebe Pui Ying Lam & Cynthia Kar Yung Yiu

  2. Early Childhood Education, S R Nathan School of Human Development, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore, Singapore

    Weipeng Yang

  3. Dental Public Health, Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Colman Patrick McGrath

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  1. Rennan Yanlin Du
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  2. Weipeng Yang
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Contributions

RYD conceptualized, designed and conducted the study. RYD and WY drafted the initial manuscript and reviewed and revised all drafts of the manuscript. CKYY and CPM helped conceptualize the study and provided critical reviews of intellectual content. WY and PPYL provided critical reviews of the manuscript and ensured data represented in tables and text were accurate. All authors approved the final manuscript as submitted.

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Correspondence to Rennan Yanlin Du.

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Du, R.Y., Yang, W., Lam, P.P.Y. et al. Developing a Toothbrushing Visual Pedagogy (TBVP) for Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 52, 327–338 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-04946-5

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