Wandering Among Preschool Children with and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Lisa D Wiggins, Carolyn DiGuiseppi, Laura Schieve and 4 others
PMID 31977588WHAT IT FOUND
In preschoolers, 60.4% of children classified as autism spectrum disorder were reported to wander, compared with 12.4% of population comparison children.
Wandering was also linked to affective, anxiety, ADHD, and oppositional problems. The study was observational, so it shows links, not causes.
Key findings
01Children classified as ASD were reported to wander more often than children with a previous ASD diagnosis who did not meet study criteria, children with other developmental delay, and population comparison children: 60.4%, 41.3%, 22.3%, and 12.4%.
02After accounting for other factors, children classified as ASD had 3.83 higher odds of wandering than population comparison children; affective, anxiety, ADHD, and oppositional problems were also associated with wandering.
03Mothers aged 19 years or younger had 1.98 higher odds of having a child who wandered than mothers aged 40 years or older; mothers with less than a high school education had 1.46 higher odds than mothers with a college or advanced degree.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Wandering was measured from one broad Child Behavior Checklist item asking whether the child wanders away, not from a standardized wandering assessment, so it may not capture frequency, setting, or seriousness. The analysis included only children 4 to 5 years of age, so it does not tell you about younger or older children. The study did not measure the impact of wandering on families. The study is observational, so it can show links between wandering and other factors but cannot show that those factors caused wandering. Children were classified by study criteria and research measures, not by clinical diagnosis alone.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest. The article is listed as supported by U.S. Government Public Health Service research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the higher odds as proof that ASD, behavior problems, or maternal factors caused wandering. This was an observational study using one broad parent-report item, so it reports links, not causes.