Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on therapy service delivery and functioning for school-aged children with disabilities in the United States.
Kristen M Allison, Danielle E Levac
PMID 35115260WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers of children with disabilities reported losing therapy services during the pandemic, with 42% losing all therapy.
Over half saw declines in endurance, communication, social skills, and behavior. Children with multiple diagnoses experienced greater declines across most domains.
Key findings
0142% of children lost access to all therapy services during the first four months of the pandemic.
02Over half of caregivers reported some or significant decline in their child's functioning in endurance, communication, social skills, and behavior due to therapy service changes.
03Parents of children with multiple diagnoses reported significantly greater declines in functioning due to changes in therapy services in all domains except communication.
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
The sample was limited to English-speaking families. There was uneven geographic representation, with more participants from the Northeast. The survey did not evaluate the psychometric properties of the questions or use standardized measures of change. The study only covered the initial months of the pandemic (March-June 2020), so longer-term effects were not captured. Participants did not distinguish between the impact of therapy loss versus other pandemic factors like increased sedentary time or lack of peer access.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that teletherapy was widely accessible or effective for all children. Only 34% of children received teletherapy, and access was strongly linked to pre-existing home device availability and the number of therapies the child already received, suggesting a digital divide rather than a universal solution.