Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Effectiveness of ‘video-based interventions’ of toothbrushing over other interventions on improvement of oral hygiene in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): a systematic review and meta-analysis

Evidence-Based Dentistry volume 26, pages 112–113 (2025)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background

Children with Autism exhibit impairment of fine motor co-ordination and sensory sensibilities and hence can directly affect the toothbrushing leading to poor oral hygiene.

Aim

This current systematic review and meta-analysis (SRMA) aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Video-based intervention of toothbrush training over other methods on improvement of oral hygiene in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)

Materials and methods

Prospero no: (CRD42023450168). ‘PubMed’, ‘Cochrane’, ‘Ovid’ databases were searched from 1 January 1980 to 1 August 2023 using pre-defined search strategy.

Results

212 titles were retrieved after, duplicate exclusion, removal of irrelevant titles led to the final inclusion of 13 articles for full text screening out of which 7 articles were included for the final analysis.

Conclusion

Even though video intervention reported better outcomes in individual studies, pooled data showed no significant superiority over other interventions such as social stories and picture-based interventions in relation to toothbrushing in children with ASD as indicated by the Plaque Index score (PI-S) and Oral hygiene index score (OHI-S).

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The data are available from the corresponding author on a reasonable request.

References

  1. Zeidan J, Fombonne E, Scorah J, Ibrahim A, Durkin MS, Saxena S, et al. Global prevalence of autism: a systematic review update. Autism Res. 2022;15:778–90.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Hasell S, Hussain A, Da Silva K. The oral health status and treatment needs of pediatric patients living with autism spectrum disorder: a retrospective study. Dent J. 2022;10:224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Naidoo M, Singh S. The oral health status of children with autism spectrum disorder in KwaZulu-Nata, South Africa. BMC Oral Health. 2018;18:165.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Nagda R, Le T, Lin B, Tanbonliong T. Oral hygiene practice and home‐care challenges in children with autism spectrum disorder in San Francisco: cross‐ sectional study. Spec Care Dent. 2024;44:837–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Stein LI, Polido JC, Najera SOL, Cermak SA. Oral care experiences and challenges in children with autism spectrum disorders. Pediatr Dent. 2012;34:387–91.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Hage SR, Lopes-Herrera SA, Santos TF, Defense-Netvral DA, Martins A, Sawasaki LY, et al. Oral hygiene and habits of children with autism spectrum disorders and their families. J Clin Exp Dent. 2020;12:e719–24.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Tathgur MK, Kang HK. Challenges of the caregivers in managing a child with autism spectrum disorder— a qualitative analysis. Indian J Psychol Med. 2021;43:416–21.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Leme PAT, Nishiyama RR, Santos LC, Mialhe FL. Coping strategies of caregivers in performing oral hygiene care in adults with special needs: a qualitative study. Spec Care Dent. 2022;42:616–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Mafla AC, Benavides RJ, Meyer P, Giraudeau N, Schwendicke F. Association of children’s toothbrushing and fine motor skills: a cross-sectional study. Braz Oral Res. 2022;36:e103.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Choi B, Leech KA, Tager-Flusberg H, Nelson CA. Development of fine motor skills is associated with expressive language outcomes in infants at high and low risk for autism spectrum disorder. J Neurodev Disord. 2018;10:14.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. Mohd Nordin A, Ismail J, Kamal Nor N. Motor development in children with autism spectrum disorder. Front Pediatr. 2021;9:598276.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Stein LI, Polido JC, Mailloux Z, Coleman GG, Cermak SA. Oral care and sensory sensitivities in children with autism spectrum disorders. Spec Care Dent. 2011;31:102–10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Mahajan A, Anand S, Kriti, Awinashe V, Devanna R, Alessa N, et al. Evaluation of visual pedagogy teaching method for improving oral hygiene practice in children with autism: an interventional study. J Educ Health Promot. 2023;12:223.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Krishnan L, Iyer K, Kumar PDM. Effectiveness of two sensory‐based health education methods on oral hygiene of adolescent with autism spectrum disorders: an interventional study. Spec Care Dent. 2021;41:626–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Du RY, Yang W, Lam PPY, Yiu CKY, McGrath CP. Developing a toothbrushing visual pedagogy (TBVP) for preschool children with autism spectrum disorder. J Autism Dev Disord. 2022;52:327–38.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Balian A, Cirio S, Salerno C, Wolf TG, Campus G, Cagetti MG. Is visual pedagogy effective in improving cooperation towards oral hygiene and dental care in children with autism spectrum disorder? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Env Res Public Health. 2021;18:789.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Piraneh H, Gholami M, Sargeran K, Shamshiri AR. Social story based toothbrushing education versus video-modeling based toothbrushing training on oral hygiene status among male students aged 7–15 years old with autism spectrum disorders in Tehran, Iran: a quasi-randomized controlled trial. J Autism Dev Disord. 2023;53:3813–24.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Godbole N, Tirupathi SP, Nair S, Afnan L, Nallapu A, Nallapu A. Effectiveness of picture‐based interventions of toothbrush training on improvement of oral hygiene in children with autism spectrum disorders: a systematic review and meta‐analysis. Spec Care Dent. 2024;44:686–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Gandhi R, Jackson J, Puranik CP. A comparative evaluation of video modeling and social stories for improving oral hygiene in children with autism spectrum disorder: a pilot study. Spec Care Dent. 2024;44:797–803.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Orellana L, Cantero-Fuentealba C, Schmidlin-Espinoza L, Luengo L. Psychoeducational intervention to improve oral assessment in people with autism spectrum disorder, BIO-BIO region, Chile. Med Oral Patol Oral Cir Bucal. 2019;24:e37–e46.

  21. Ramassamy E, Gajula Shivashankarappa P, Adimoulame S, Meena R, Elangovan H, Govindasamy E. Yoga therapy as an adjunct to traditional tooth brushing training methods in children with autism spectrum disorder. Spec Care Dent. 2019;39:551–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Chawla DrS, Goswami DrM, Sangal DrA. Validation of indigenously developed video for teaching tooth brushing to children with autism spectrum disorder. Int J Appl Dental Sci. 2021;7:11–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Popple B, Wall C, Flink L, Powell K, Discepolo K, Keck D, et al. Brief report: remotely delivered video modeling for improving oral hygiene in children with ASD: a pilot study. J Autism Dev Disord. 2016;46:2791–6.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  24. Shalabi MASA, Khattab NMA, Elheeny AAH. Picture examination communication system versus video modelling in improving oral hygiene of children with autism spectrum disorder: a prospective randomized clinical trial. Pediatr Dent. 2022;44:25–31.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Lopez Cazaux S, Lefer G, Rouches A, Bourdon P. Toothbrushing training programme using an iPad® for children and adolescents with autism. Eur Arch Paediatric Dent. 2019;20:277–84.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Pilebro C, Bäckman B. Teaching oral hygiene to children with autism. Int J Paediatr Dent. 2005;15:1–9.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Rayner CS. Video-modelling to improve task completion in a child with autism. Dev Neurorehabil. 2010;13:225–30.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Sallam AM, Badr SBY, Rashed MA. Effectiveness of audiovisual modeling on the behavioral change toward oral and dental care in children with autism. Indian J Dent. 2013;4:184–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. McGuinness LA, Higgins JPT. Risk‐of‐bias VISualization (robvis): an R package and shiny web app for visualizing risk‐of‐bias assessments. Res Synth Methods. 2021;12:55–61.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

The current work is not funded by any organization/individual/enterprise.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (SIMATS), Saveetha University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600077, India

    Sunny Priyatham Tirupathi

  2. Department of Public Health Dentistry, Coorg Institute of Dental Sciences, Virajpet, Karnataka, 571218, India

    Lamea Afnan

Authors
  1. Sunny Priyatham Tirupathi
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Lamea Afnan
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

SPT has conceptualized and designed this work. SPT and LA worked on the data search, study selection and data collection, data extraction and data analysis. Both the authors revised it critically for important intellectual content and approved the final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sunny Priyatham Tirupathi.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tirupathi, S.P., Afnan, L. Effectiveness of ‘video-based interventions’ of toothbrushing over other interventions on improvement of oral hygiene in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): a systematic review and meta-analysis. Evid Based Dent 26, 112–113 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41432-024-01099-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Version of record:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41432-024-01099-z

Search

Advanced search

Quick links