Comparative effectiveness of conservative and surgical interventions for toe walking in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: a systematic review - Summary - MDSpire

Efficacy of Non-Surgical versus Surgical Treatments for Toe Walking in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

  • By

  • Emanuele Perricone

  • Alessia Caldaci

  • Giovanni Cacciaguerra

  • Alessandra di Nora

  • Claudia Parano

  • Vito Pavone

  • July 20, 2026

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Objective:

To synthesize current evidence on reported outcomes of conservative and surgical interventions for toe walking in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Approach:
  • Systematic Review: A PRISMA-based systematic review was conducted using PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar to identify studies reporting interventions for toe walking in children with ASD.
Key Findings:
  • Eight studies involving 424 ASD patients aged 2–16 years were included.
  • Conservative and multimodal conservative treatments generally reported higher improvement values than surgical and unimodal approaches.
  • Findings were unweighted and based on heterogeneous and non-equivalent outcome measures.
Interpretation:

Current evidence is of very low certainty and does not allow conclusions regarding comparative effectiveness or treatment superiority.

Limitations:
  • Substantial heterogeneity in study outcomes.
  • Very low certainty of evidence.
  • Findings should be considered descriptive and hypothesis-generating only.
Conclusion:

Further high-quality prospective studies using standardized clinical outcomes and long-term follow-up are required.

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