Abstract:

Background:
The special needs community has been in the limelight in Malaysia in recent years, especially those experiencing Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The Malaysian government as well as the community have become aware of the need to contribute in assisting children with ASD. Several articles have been published that discuss the prevalence of ASD, the assistance provided to fulfil these children’s needs, their significant caregivers (including educators, medical professionals and parents) and interventions that have been carried out. However, to date, no article(s) that have compiled published studies on intervention among children with ASD in Malaysia have been published. With this article, we hope to identify the gap in in the intervention for ASD children in Malaysia.

Methods:
A scoping review process was applied in the current study based on the five steps proposed by Arksey and O’Malley (2005). This method is suitable for the collection and organization of the existing empirical evidence for identifying the gap in the studies on interventions for children with ASD in Malaysia. Due to time and budget constraints, only research published between 2010 and 2017 has been included. Primary studies were identified through electronic databases, the internet and research registers. Then, these studies were assessed through critical appraisal of topics. A multi- stage iterative group process was generated and ten articles were identified that fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study.

Results:
Evidence reported that of the ten studies, four were published in 2017, two in 2011 and 2013 and one each in 2010 and 2014. The participants involved were children diagnosed with ASD whose ages ranged from 7 - 12 years old. These studies reported the impact and effect of intervention among children with ASD in the Malaysian context. The interventions reported included social story, attention instruction using games, animal assisted therapy, picture exchange communication systems (PECS), brain training, casual speech method, Quranic Sound Therapy, portrait drawing therapy, music and movement therapy, and music education. In this scoping review intervention type, duration of the intervention, study populations, study’s objectives, diagnosis and classification system, type of instrument used for measurement, age in years, where there is a control group, and important results have been included.

Imitations:
Only the published primary studies have been identified while the resources from reference lists, hand-searching of key journals and resources from existing networks, relevant organizations and conferences have been excluded. Consequently, only a limited number of studies are addressed. Methods of diagnosing ASD may complicate this review as well.

Conclusion:
The intervention for children with ASD is important; the statistics show a positive progress in studies on intervention among children with ASD in Malaysia as the number of studies increased in 2017. Nevertheless, the number of studies on intervention with ASD children in Malaysia are still too few. It would be beneficial for studies of intervention for ASD children in Malaysia to use the Williams and Shellenberger’s (1996) pyramid of learning as the fundamental goals to achieve, and to focus specifically on examining the interventions in the Malaysia as cultural context may contribute to the effect of the intervention.

Keywords:

Autism Spectrum Disorder, Malaysia, Children, Intervention.