COVID-19 Infection and Mitigation for Young Children With Autism and Other Disabilities.
Robert Fitzgerald, Lauren Eck, Karen Pazol and 3 others
PMID 40743451WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers reported more positive tests and more difficulty with masking, handwashing, distancing, and nasal swabs in young children with autism or other developmental disabilities than in population comparison children.
No intervention was tested.
Key findings
01Caregiver-reported prevalence of 1 or more positive COVID-19 tests was 11% for children with ASD, 13% for children with other DD, and less than 5% for population comparison children.
02Across the sample, physical distancing was the most frequently endorsed mitigation challenge (45%), followed by masking (39%) and handwashing (21%).
03After adjustment, children with ASD and other DD were more likely than population comparison children to have difficulty with physical distancing and handwashing; children with ASD also had more difficulty with masking and nasal swabbing.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study relied on caregiver report about events that could have happened up to a year earlier, and the mitigation questions were only yes/no. The groups differed in race/ethnicity, child sex, and household income, and adjustment may not have removed all confounding. Few children had a positive test, so the positive test association could not be adjusted for confounding. The study did not know how many tests each child received, so it could not compare test positivity rates. No intervention was tested, so the study cannot show whether coaching or training would improve outcomes.
Declared interests
The parent SEED3 study was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The authors declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this study tested a mitigation training program or that autism itself caused the higher positive test rate. It was a caregiver report study, and the authors did not adjust the positive test finding for confounding because few children had positive tests.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →