Table 1.

Adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and dance movement therapy.

References	Study design	Objective	Sample	Intervention length	Intervention elements	Evaluation tools	Results and conclusions
Brezis et al. (2017)	Experimental setup	Examining synchronization during an open-ended joint improvization paradigm—the mirror game (MG), aiming to assess whether participants with ASD are capable of attaining co-confidence and whether their MG performance relates to broader motor and social skills	Thirty-four participants with high-functioning ASD and 38 TD	The experimental sessions lasted for 2–3 h	The Mirror Game Procedure, including the reaching task, proprioception task, repetitive motion task, and following a moving target task	MG; the Revised Neurological Examination for Subtle Signs (PANESS); the Florida Apraxia Battery, an imitation battery based on Fitzpatrick et al. (2013); Toronto Empathy Questionnaire, TEQ; Reading the Mind in the Eyes, RMET; Toronto Alexithymia Scale, TAS.	ASD participants can attain moments of high motor synchronization, even during an open-ended task. Joint synchronization was not inexistent, but simply reduced, in individuals with ASD, and their existing synchronization skills may be further harnessed in clinical settings to support their personal expression and social rapport
						Following the MG, the participants completed a naturalistic conversation task
DeJesus et al. (2020)	Systematic review	Identifying how dance promotes positive benefits for the negative symptoms in ASD	Five studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria	–	Analysis of article titles, reading summaries of articles that had been identified, reading the entire article, analyzing article references from those that had been read in their entirety	Research question based on the PICO strategy. Five databases were used: the National Library of Medicine (MEDLINE-PubMed), Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus, and PsycINFO (APA—American Psychological Association)	Dance practice can promote a beneficial effect on the negative symptoms of individuals with ASD in daily life as well as positively influence biopsychosocial aspects. It contributes to body awareness and social involvement using techniques like mirroring, synchronization, rhythm, and reciprocity
Delafield-Butt et al. (2020)	Case study design	Examining narrative meaning-making between a nonverbal young woman with severe autism and her new therapist	One participant	Not described	Intensive interaction, which involves interacting with a person by using their own sounds and movements	Microanalysis and coding video footage	Intervention was successful in promoting emotional engagement, rapport, and intersubjective communication
Edwards (2015)	Qualitative, reflective participant observation (case study) methodology within a realism perspective	Exploring sensory experiences of adults with autism and to find out how they form relationships, including attachment behaviors, within a DMT group	Four adults diagnosed with autism	Eight-week period (the participants attended DMT sessions for 12 months prior to the research period)	Not described	(1) Movement observations by therapists, (2) verbal feedback from the participants was noted at the end of each session, and (3) the therapists' reflective journals	Accommodating and adjusting to sensory differences influenced how the participants formed relationships, which suggests that DMT was a beneficial intervention for them
Hildebrandt et al. (2016)	Cohort study RCT	Examining the effect of movement therapy intervention (based on DMT) on negative symptoms (NS) in participants with ASD	Seventy-eight individuals with ASD: 55 in the intervention group and 23 in the control group	Ten weekly sessions with a duration of 60 min	Manualized DMT intervention. Each session consisted of three mirroring exercises and one verbal processing element. The control group received no intervention	Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS)	The study highlighted the influence of dance practice on negative symptoms, including emotional expression, with an interaction effect at the significance level of 0.1, indicating symptom reduction in the dance group [F(1.4) = 2.99, p = 0.09]. The effect sizes were small but clinically meaningful, and the resulting patterns were in accordance with theoretical expectations.
							The effect sizes indicate a moderate effect for group and a small effect for the interaction term
Koch et al. (2015)	Cohort study, clinical trial	To examine the effectiveness of DMT intervention based on mirroring in movement with ASD in increasing body awareness, social skills, self–other distinction, empathy, and well-being	Thirty-one young adults diagnosed with ASD: 16 in the intervention group and 15 in the control group	Seven weeks of hourly sessions once a week	Structured treatment—manualized DMT intervention of mirroring exercises and verbal processing.	(1) Pretest and posttest Questionnaires—Heidelberger State Inventory, Questionnaire of Movement Therapy; (2) self–other awareness self-constructed scale; short form of the EES. FBT subscale of social skills; observations of mirroring modalities through the concept of co- and self-regulation from Eberhard-Kaechele (2009, 2012); qualitative expressive measures (painting a picture or writing a short poem)	DMT can be effective and feasible for the treatment of individuals with ASD, causing improvement in psychological well-being, body awareness, self–other awareness, and social skills compared with the control group [F(1.27) = 2.95, p = 0.04, d = 0.63]. Outcomes improved significantly in the expected direction with medium to large effects (effect sizes of 0.61–0.91)
					The control group received no intervention
Koch et al. (2016).	Intervention research	Investigating the effects of DMT on body image in autism	Ten young adults with ASD	Ten weekly sessions of DMT	DMT intervention based on therapeutic mirroring and verbal processing	Body-image-sculpture test, a projective test (KST)	The results indicated an improvement in body image both on the individual and on intersubjective aspect in a group context.
							N = 64 would be needed to fulfill the requirements of power analysis given the effect sizes of the present study
Koehne et al. (2016a)	Intervention-controlled parallel-group clinical trial (proof-of-concept study)	Establishing the efficacy of imitation- and synchronization-based DMT intervention (SIDMI) in fostering emotion inference and empathic feelings with high-functioning adults with ASD	Fifty-five adults with ASD: 29 in the intervention group and 26 in the control group	Ten weeks of a DMT intervention administered in 10 90-min sessions over the course of 3 months	DMT interventions focused on interpersonal movement imitation and synchronization (SI-DMI) and a control movement intervention focusing on individual motor coordination (CMI)	Multifaceted empathy test targeting emotion inference and empathic feelings; self-rated interpersonal reactivity index; assessment of spontaneous interaction in movement pre–post design; we proposed a conservative medium effect size of η2 = 0.13, resulting in a total sample size of n = 56, given a significance level of 5% and power of 80%	DMT focused on interpersonal imitation and synchronization changed emotional inference when compared with the control movement intervention group (p = 0.04, η2 = 0.09).
							Interaction effects related to social reciprocity were also promoted by imitation/synchronization (p < 0.001, d = 1.27) and reciprocity/dialogue (p = 0.04, d = 1.25), respectively. Those treated with SI-DMI showed a significantly larger improvement in emotion inference than those treated with CMI. SI-DMI increased synchronization skills and imitation tendencies, as well as whole-body imitation/synchronization and movement reciprocity/dialogue, compared to CMI
Koehne et al. (2016b)	Cohort study, experimental design	Investigating the effect of perceived interpersonal synchrony on cognitive and emotional empathy in individuals with and without ASD	Twenty adults with ASD and 22 NT participants	Not described	Engaging in two simple leader—follower finger tapping communication tasks	The Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC); the revised version of the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” task (RME)	The results point to a mediating role for interpersonal synchronization in cognitive empathy, a mechanism that seems attenuated, yet not absent, in ASD
Mastrominico et al. (2018)	Cohort study—RCT	Examining the effects of DMT on empathy for adults with ASD	Fifty-seven individuals with ASD: 35 in the intervention group and 22 in the control group	Ten DMT sessions once a week	Manualized form of DMT.	Empathy, measured with the Cognitive and Emotional Empathy Questionnaire (CEEQ); observational measures such as the SANS-scale for negative symptoms; the subscale Empathic Concern of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)	Mirroring interventions had an effect on empathy, relationships, and perception of the feelings of others as well as psychological health. The main effect of time compared with control group yield findings for emotional empathy [F(1,55) = 12.55, p = 0.001, η2 = 0.19) and its subscales mirroring [F(1,55) = 9.22, p = 0.004, η2 = 0.14) and empathic concern [F(1,55) = 4.99, p = 0.030, η2 = 0.08]
					Every dance movement session was built from the same elements, including a warm-up, two different mirroring exercises, and a final verbal part
Mateos-Moreno and Atencia-Doña, 2013	Experimental study	Assessing the effectiveness of DMT and music therapy (MT) procedures on adults with severe autism	Sixteen participants	Thirty-six 1-h sessions during 17 weeks	A number of varied MT and DMT activities in each session. The core of each session consisted of dance, instrumental practice, singing, and observation/mimicking of movement	Revised Clinical Scale for the Evaluation of Autistic Behavior (ECA-R). During the treatment, eight measurements were taken (one every 3 weeks)	The observed power by partial squared Eta was high (2 = 0.90, p < 0.001) in the progression of measures in the experimental group.
							The value of partial squared omega ω2 = 0.69 estimates an equally high effect size (Cohen, 1988) of the treatment if systematically applied to the severely affected adult autistic population. The observed power (Cohen's d = 1.18, r = 0.51) suggests a moderate effect size (Cohen, 1988) on the interaction disorder.
							The observed power (Cohen's d = 1.88, r = 0.68) suggests an elevated effect size (Cohen, 1988) on the instinct disorder.
							The study provides preliminary evidence for the high benefits of jointly using MT and DMT with severely affected autistic adults
Takahashi et al. (2019)	Systematic review	To verify the quality of DMT and ASD studies using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and to evaluate the effectiveness of DMT interventions for individuals with ASD	Seven studies	Not described	The criteria were (a) use of specific key terms, (b) publications in international evidence-based English academic journals between 1970 and 2018, (c) the specific words were used in the papers' abstract, and (d) individuals involved in DMT were identified as having ASD, Asperger's, or PDD	Keyword analyses of four electronic databases—Medline, Pubmed, Cinahl, and Springer Link	Imitation (mirroring) interventions helped individuals with ASD improve their social skills. DMT treatment will help mitigate the difficulty of sociality in ASD and is an effective preventive or treatment measure for improving social skills
Wadsworth and Hackett (2014)	An observational single-case study and a practice-based research approach	Introducing a structured narrative approach in the form of the six-part story within DMT with an adult with ASD	One participant	Seven DMT sessions lasting 45 min	A consistent format including a warm-up, mirroring, a “six-part story,” and relaxation techniques	The BASIC-Ph; the creative arts therapies session rating scale (CAT-SRS); Picture Communication Symbols TM Boardmaker program	The study results indicate that DMT practice can incorporate structured narrative approaches in work with adults with ASD
Zapata-Fonseca et al. (2019)	A quantitative description	Providing a quantifiable link between individual motor movement markers as potential diagnostic tools for ASD and social interaction deficits of ASD, which are currently the two main diagnostic criteria	Ten dyads of adult participants	Not described	Interpersonal coordination complexity matching (CM), individual movement profiles, multi-scale movement variability	The time series of embodied interaction was recorded by means of a minimalistic human–computer interface paradigm that has become known as the “perceptual crossing experiment” (PCE)	An overall mutual coordination was reached at the dyad level, even in this highly constrained, minimal environment. Research supports the usage of computer-mediated and tactile interactions for understanding the relationship between movement-based coordination and social engagement in patients with ASD