[Effect of intradermal needling combined with oral motor therapy for salivation in children with cerebral palsy: a randomized controlled trial].

OBJECTIVE: To compare the effect of combination of intradermal needling with oral motor therapy and simple oral motor therapy on salivation in children with cerebral palsy. METHODS: A total of 60 children with salivation in cerebral palsy were randomized into an observation group and a control group, 30 cases in each group. The observation group was treated with intradermal needling (kept for 24 hours each time at Jiache [ST 6], Dicang [ST 4], tongue three needles, etc. ) and oral motor therapy, while the control group was only given oral motor therapy. The intradermal needling was performed 3 times a week, and oral motor therapy was performed 5 times a week, 4 weeks as a course, totally 3 courses of treatment were required. The classification of teacher drooling scale (TDS), drooling severity and Kubota water swallow test, dysphagia disorders survey (DDS) score were compared before treatment and after 4, 8 and 12 weeks of treatment in both groups, and the clinical efficacy was evaluated. RESULTS: After 8 weeks of treatment in the observation group and after 12 weeks of treatment in the two groups, the classification of TDS and drooling severity were improved (P<0.05), and the observation group was better than the control group after 12 weeks of treatment (P<0.05). After 8 and 12 weeks of treatment, the DDS scores of oral period in the observation group were lower than those before treatment (P<0.05). The total effective rate in the observation group was 83.3% (25/30), which was higher than 53.3% (16/30) in the control group (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The combination of intradermal needling with oral motor therapy can improve salivation symptoms and swallowing function in children with cerebral palsy, the effect is better than oral motor therapy alone, and the effect is earlier.

Effectiveness of parent-training program on children with autism spectrum disorder in China.

Objective: This study intends to explore the effect of parent-training program on the rehabilitation intervention in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Chinese-speaking areas of China by offering parent skill training and psychology counseling. Methods: From January 2018 to June 2019, a total of 80 children diagnosed with ASD from the Department of Children Healthcare of Wuxi Children's Hospital were randomly grouped into the parent training groups and control groups. Parents in the training group received 12 weeks of skill training, including 8 group and 2 individual training sessions, as well as psychology counseling. This enabled them to give their children >2 h of intervention training daily in a natural environment. Children in the control group were placed on a rehabilitation waiting list or received general community training. Before grouping and after the intervention, all children underwent neuropsychological evaluations with Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC), Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS), and Gesell Developmental Schedule (GDS). GDS covers five sectors, namely adaptive behavior, gross motor, fine motor, language, and personal-social behavior. Results: Statistically significant differences were not detected between the two groups in ABC, CARS, and GDS scoring at baseline evaluation. And significant differences were detected between the two groups in ABC, CARS, adaptive behavior, and personal-social behavior scoring at endpoint evaluation. Furthermore, the re-evaluation results of ABC scoring and CARS scoring of the children in the parent training group decreased significantly from the preliminary evaluation results when compared before and after the intervention. Moreover, the intragroup comparison of adaptive behavior scoring, language scoring, and personal-social behavior scoring of the experiment group increased significantly from the preliminary evaluation results, while the difference of the same of the children in the control group between re-evaluation and preliminary evaluation did not differ significantly. Conclusions: In China, the parent-training program enables parents to train ASD children in a natural environment, which would markedly improve behavioral problems, core symptoms, adaptability, language competence, and social development capability.