Intro: Welcome back to another episode on “what the AUTISM?!” This podcast is for anyone who is struggling with understanding what autism is and how we can better empower our autism community through research proven methods. In each episode, I will be sharing with you ground-breaking research and how the diagnosis of autism can often be misunderstood. If you are a new listener to our podcast, I highly recommend you start from episode 1 to catch you up to speed on various terminology and concepts! Now let’s get started…
In today’s episode, I want to talk about the research behind physical activity with autistic children. (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210202113843.htm)Now, it may seem like a no-brainer that all children should be engaging in some type of daily physical activity, but surprisingly, the Oregon State University helped find some really interesting data when it comes to our children with autism. This research study was published earlier this year in February 2021 and found that between the ages of 9 to 13 years of age, children showed the biggest drop in active time. In order to help children with autism maintain healthy rates of physical activity, the study suggested that interventions should be targeted especially between the age of 9 to 13 years.
This study was one of the first to evaluate this issue on a longitudinal scale. The study relied on data collected from families in Ireland between 2007-2016. The children who participated in this study had their evaluations/interviews at the age of 9, 13, and then lastly between the age of 17-18. The study compared 88 children with autism to 88 children without autism over the course of these 9 years to determine how physical activity changed over time, along with patterns on screen time usage.
The study found no significant difference in screen time between children with autism and children without a diagnosis, but there was a significant difference in the amount of physical activity reported. As someone who has worked with many different families leading various lifestyles, I can see how some of our autistic children drastically decrease in physical activities in their adolescent years. As academics become more demanding and services such as ABA, speech, and/or OT continues to take up all afternoon, there is very limited amount of time to intentionally designate to physical activity. There’s not enough time in a day to go around. Some autistic children even despise being outside. Being out in the sun during the summer is one of their worst nightmares, but with positive association to the outdoors and building a higher tolerance to physical exertion can help a child better tolerate the outdoors. There is always a way to make it work. But during free time, I recommend not just handing off the phone or tablet to your child to buy yourself some time. Yes, when times get tough you need to do what you need to do to make things work. But what I want to focus on is not allowing that to become a daily routine. Our children need to be constantly moving and coming into more frequent contact with their environment outside of the electronics. Be intentional about taking your child outside for a walk around the neighborhood. You prefer to keep things indoors during this pandemic? Totally okay...have them move throughout the house. Incorporate a mini workout routine before dinner. Anything to get your children moving. The physical health created for our children now will determine their health patterns for their future. Let’s not let a child’s autism diagnosis affect their physical health as well.
The CDC recommends that between the ages 3-5 years, children should be constantly moving and engaging in physical activity all day. Children between the ages of 5-17 should engage in nothing less than an hour of moderate-vigorous physical activity. As a BCBA and clinical programmer, I enjoy making some of my programs/lessons more physically active than trying to teach at a desk. Any lesson can be turned into a game, and any child can learn so much more being outdoors than being stuck indoors all day, especially during COVID times. So if you’re a parent, a BCBA, a behavior technician, a teacher, I highly recommend that you take a look at your child and determine how much physical activity can be incorporated into his/her daily activities to encourage more physical movement and healthier living in their many years ahead. If you’d like to review the research study that we discussed on today’s episode, the article will be posted on our Facebook page.
But I’d love to hear from you on how you’re keeping your child physically active during this pandemic. With many states still enforcing remote learning and social distancing, how are you balancing the amount of time your child is on screen versus physically moving? Are there any fun activities or ideas that you’d like to share with the group?
Ending: This concludes another episode here at “What the Autism?!” But if you have any specific questions or concerns you’d like me to cover in future episodes, or you’d like to connect with us on today’s topic, please reach out to us through our Facebook page and Instagram @whattheautism or via email at whattheautismpodcast@gmail.com. We upload a new episode on your favorite podcast platform every Wednesday. Please note that this podcast has been created to discuss my personal experiences and opinions and is not a means of medical or psychological recommendations. But if you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure to follow and subscribe to our podcast channel, and I’ll see you in episode 16.
