Effectiveness of two visual-pedagogical methods for toothbrushing skills in autistic children: A randomized clinical trial.

Aim: This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of two visual pedagogy methods, video modeling and educational posters, on improving tooth-brushing autonomy in 10-12-year-old children with mild autism.

Methods: Sixty-four autistic children were randomly assigned to either the video or poster groups using the Rand function in Excel. Toothbrushing skills were divided into five stages: preparation, buccal, occlusal, lingual surfaces, and the end. These five stages comprised a total of 20 steps, with each step scored from 1 (not done at all) to 5 (done independently). The final score was calculated by averaging the scores of the five stages. The FONES method of toothbrushing was used for training. Follow-up assessments were conducted after 1 and 3 months. The data were analyzed using SPSS V26, including t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests, and repeated-measures ANOVA.

Results: After 3 months, there were significant improvements in autonomy scores for both groups, with the video group showing greater benefits (4.37 ± 0.43) compared to the poster group (4.11 ± 0.49) (p = .03), with an effect size of η² = .07.

Conclusion: Both video and poster methods were effective in improving tooth-brushing skills, but video modeling was associated with a higher total autonomy score.