Brief report: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health behaviors in adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Jeanette M Garcia, Shawn Lawrence, Keith Brazendale and 2 others
PMID 33221246WHAT IT FOUND
In nine adolescents with ASD, self-reported physical activity fell from 4.17 to 2.27 days per week, while screen time rose.
Sleep duration did not change, but four said bedtime shifted later.
Key findings
01Self-reported days of 60 minutes or more of physical activity per week fell from 4.17 before the pandemic to 2.27 during quarantine.
02Screen time rose from 3.69 to 6.25 hours per weekday and from 5.94 to 7.39 hours per weekend.
03Sleep duration did not differ, but four of nine participants said they were going to bed later.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only nine adolescents were analysed; 11 started and two did not complete follow-up, so the results may not represent adolescents with ASD outside this setting. All participants came from one private school's health promotion program, and their prior tracking of health behaviors and interest in health may have biased answers. The before-pandemic answers were collected after quarantine began and relied on recall, not contemporaneous pre-pandemic measurements. Health behaviors were self-reported on a brief survey, not measured by accelerometers or detailed sleep logs. The study had no comparison group of adolescents without ASD and no intervention, so it cannot prove the pandemic caused the changes. Sleep duration showed no difference, but four participants commented about later bedtimes; this was not a formal sleep-change question and may be anecdotal. The small sample may have been too small to detect sleep differences.
Declared interests
The authors reported no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication, and declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the pandemic caused these behavior changes or that any clinician-led intervention can reverse them. This was a self-report survey of nine adolescents with ASD, with no control group and no treatment tested.