Exploring occupational therapists' use of movement guidelines for young children with disabilities.
Leah G Taylor, Matthew Bourke, Liliana Alvarez and 3 others
PMID 39930819WHAT IT FOUND
Pediatric OTs in Canada agreed the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines matter for preschoolers with disabilities and were open to using them, but most knew the guidelines only vaguely and half said no implementation tools came with them.
Training and confidence were the gaps.
Key findings
01Most of the 28 therapists said they had the general knowledge to give movement advice for children with developmental disabilities, yet most were not at all or only somewhat familiar with the guidelines themselves.
02No one disagreed that physical activity and sleep matter for healthy development and are relevant to occupational therapy, but some disagreed about limiting sedentary behaviour: 3 for healthy development and 5 for occupational performance.
03Only 9 of the 28 agreed the guidelines came with implementation tools, and most were unsure, disagreed, or neither agreed that the tools available are helpful in practice.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only 28 therapists answered, all of them women, so the numbers are small; the authors say this affects both how far the findings generalise and how reliable the statistics are. They could not run analyses to predict what drives guideline use, only look at associations. Everyone volunteered through professional bodies, networks and social media, so these are therapists already interested in the topic rather than a random sample of Canadian occupational therapists. It is all self-report from a single questionnaire. The authors note this can lead to people interpreting questions differently and answering in a flattering light, and participants' own activity levels were higher than national averages, which they suggest may reflect that bias. Only therapists working with 3- and 4-year-olds could join, which the authors say shrank the pool of eligible people. The study describes what therapists said. It does not show whether using the guidelines changes children's activity, sleep or participation.
Declared interests
The authors state they received no financial support for the research, authorship or publication of the article. The funder named is the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University.
The easy way to misread this
Reading this as a verdict on the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines is the wrong move. The study asked 28 volunteer therapists what they thought and did; it did not test whether following the guidelines changes anything for children. The small, all-woman group that answered also cannot stand in for Canadian occupational therapy practice as a whole.
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 →