Cycling Interventions on Cognition in Children With Autism

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial was to determine if a specific type of cycling exercise improved executive functions in school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder (both boys and girls, aged 8-10 years, no healthy volunteers).

The main questions it addressed were:

1. . Did learning to ride a real bicycle improve planning, flexibility, working memory, and inhibition more than stationary cycling?
2. .Was the benefit driven by (A) dynamic balance, (B) spatial updating, or both?

Researchers compared four arms to identify if dynamic balance and/or spatial updating were the active components using three interventions groups, namely learning to bicycle (LTB), bicycle treadmill (BT), cycling with training wheels (TW)-and one active control group (stationary cycling, SC).

Participants:

1. . Provided a small urine sample three times for BDNF brain-marker testing.
2. . Played four short tablet games (10 minutes each) at 1st intervention session , 4th intervention session and 8th intervention session to assess their Executive Functions.
3. . Attended four 45-minute cycling sessions per week for 2 weeks at their respective school.
4. .Continued all usual therapies; no medicine was administered

The trial was completed on 31 December 2024 (RGC Ref 18616522, HREC 2021-2022-0397).

Conditions

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Learning to Bicycle

2 weeks, 4×45 min/week. Progressive removal of stabilisers on 16-inch bikes. Recruited both dynamic balance and spatial updating during real locomotion.

BEHAVIORAL

Bicycle Treadmill

2 weeks, 4×45 min/week. Bike fixed on smart rollers. Recruited dynamic balance only.

BEHAVIORAL

Cycling with Training Wheels

2 weeks, 4×45 min/week. Fixed stabilisers. Recruits spatial updating only.

BEHAVIORAL

Stationary Cycling

2 weeks, 4 ×45 min/week. Monark ergometer. Active control; recruited NEITHER dynamic balance nor spatial updating mechanism.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• San Francisco State University

  collaborator OTHER

• United Christian Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Leicester

  collaborator OTHER

• Education University of Hong Kong

  collaborator OTHER

• Chinese University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Andy Choi-Yeung Tse, PhD · Chinese University of Hong Kong

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

8 Years

Max Age

10 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-01-01

Primary Completion

2024-06-30

Completion

2024-12-31

Countries

• Hong Kong

Study Locations