The current manuscript is the second in a mini-series of manuscripts reporting the effects of
alternative, movement-based, rhythm and robotic interventions on the social communication
skills of 36 school-age children with ASD. This pilot randomized controlled trial compared
the effects of 8-weeks of rhythm and robotic interventions to those of a standard-of-care,
comparison intervention. The first manuscript reported intervention effects on the
spontaneous and responsive social attention skills of children. In this manuscript, we report …

We compared the effects of 8-weeks of rhythm and robotic interventions with those of a
comparison, standard-of-care intervention, on the spontaneous and responsive social
attention patterns of school-age children with autism spectrum disorder. Attention patterns
were examined within a standardized pretest/posttest measure of joint attention (JA) and a
training-specific social attention measure during early, mid, and late training sessions. The
rhythm and comparison groups demonstrated improvements in JA. Social attention was …