Art Group Interventions for Children With Learning Differences: A Systematic Review.

The studies were too different to pool, so the review cannot say how big any effect is, or whether art groups work better than simply being in a group doing something else. Most included studies were very small, several with two to six participants, and many were of lower-level evidence, so a single weak study often carries an entire outcome area. How well interventions were described was poor in places, as low as 25% on the TIDieR checklist, so for several studies it is impossible to tell exactly what was done. Only seven of the 20 studies reported feasibility information, and the included studies rarely reported the size of their effects or whether those effects mattered to daily life. The search excluded children with physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, deafness and blindness, so nothing here applies to those children.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The work received financial support acknowledged from the Neurodiversity Foundation, specifically Mr Ben Truter, named as the funder.

Do not read this as proof that art groups work for children with learning differences. The review could not combine the studies, most were small and of low-level evidence, and many of the reported outcomes did not reach statistical significance. The authors' closing claim that art groups are a viable therapeutic method goes further than the data they collected.