Autism in Preschool-Aged Children: The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown.
Cristiano Termine, Vera Galli, Linda Greta Dui and 4 others
PMID 37540405WHAT IT FOUND
Preschoolers with autism struggled far more with remote learning and showed worsening behaviors during lockdown, with 43% of parents reporting symptom deterioration.
Typically developing children managed better, though all groups lost physical activity and sleep routine.
Key findings
01ASD was a strong negative predictor for remote learning success.
0243% of parents reported worsening general symptoms in children with ASD, and 57% showed skill regression after therapy interruption.
03Children with ASD significantly less likely to ask about the virus, with 68.6% never asking compared to 13.7% of controls.
04Outdoor space at home was associated with better behavior in controls and fewer night awakenings in all children.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
ASD treated as a single group without severity stratification, masking heterogeneity in support needs. Cross-sectional design during a unique global event limits generalisability to other contexts. Parent-report only, with no clinical verification of symptom changes. Subsampling reduced the original 964 to 350 to match controls, potentially introducing selection bias. No pre-lockdown baseline data for individual children; comparisons are retrospective parent reports. Small ASD sample (n=35) limits statistical power for subgroup analyses.
Declared interests
No funding or conflicts of interest declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the 43% worsening of symptoms as a direct effect of lockdown isolation alone; the study reports that 57% of children showed skill regression specifically after the interruption of rehabilitation therapies, indicating that loss of professional support, not just confinement, was a key driver of decline.