Table 1.

Study selection criteria.

Framework	Criteria
Types of participants	Studies with participants of 16 years of age or below; diagnosed with ASD of any severity were considered for this review. Furthermore, studies in which the majority (>75%) of the participants were younger than 16 years or had a diagnosis of ASD were included
Types of interventions	Studies where DMP was delivered as an intervention by a qualified therapist (in the countries where training is available) with clear goals and therapeutic process were considered. All DMP approaches were considered even if they were delivered alongside other arts therapies or as a combination with other arts therapies. However, studies where dance training or other types of recreational dance programmes without a psychotherapeutic process were not included in this review
Types of outcome measures and processes	Outcomes of DMP on social, cognitive, emotional, behavioural, physical, academic measured through standardised measures were considered. Methods that captured the perspectives of children, parents, therapists, and teachers on both the process and the outcomes were included. Video analysis methods that looked at therapeutic process were also considered. Studies that neither investigated the therapeutic process nor its outcomes were excluded
Types of studies	Any type of empirical research (quantitative, qualitative, mixed, or arts-based methods) were included. Studies not included were: non-empirical research studies (e.g., secondary sources, opinion-based, editorials, policy reviews and statements, commentaries), studies not published in English, unpublished Master level dissertations, unpublished conference presentations, conference proceedings where full-length articles are not available, clinical case examples without rigorous research methodology and narrative articles and reviews without rigorous research methodology