School Attendance Problems Among Children with Neurodevelopmental Conditions One year Following the Start of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Vasiliki Totsika, Athanasia Kouroupa, Amanda Timmerman and 6 others
PMID 37480438WHAT IT FOUND
For children with autism or intellectual disability, school absence was driven by unmet needs and anxiety, not COVID-19.
Positive parent-teacher relationships and predictable routines helped attendance. Parents reported lack of differentiated support as a major barrier.
Key findings
01School refusal and health reasons were the most frequent causes of absence, accounting for 37% and 22% of missed days respectively, while COVID-19 related absence accounted for only 11%.
02Child anxiety was associated with more days absent and persistent absence, whereas parent pandemic anxiety showed no significant association with school attendance outcomes.
03A more positive parent-teacher relationship was associated with fewer days absent, less persistent absence, and a lower likelihood of school exclusion and school refusal.
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
Recruitment used convenience sampling via charities, which limits generalisability. The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot establish cause and effect. There was no comparison group of children without neurodevelopmental conditions. About one third of participants did not complete the final part of the survey, and these dropouts were more likely to experience socioeconomic deprivation, though analyses accounted for this.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the low percentage of COVID-19 related absence as evidence that the pandemic had no impact on attendance. The study found that pre-existing factors like unmet needs and anxiety were the primary drivers, suggesting that pandemic-related disruptions may have exacerbated these underlying issues rather than causing absence directly.