Promoting Physical Activity Among Young Children With Autism

Higher amounts of physical activity are linked to multiple health benefits including improved cognition, academic success, and classroom behavior for children. These relationships start in early childhood during the preschool years. Additional research is needed to determine the rates of physical activity among children with autism spectrum disorder. However, research suggests that compared to their typically developing peers, children with autism participate in fewer types of physical activities, often have delays in a range of motor skills, and face physical activity barriers including behavior problems, social communication challenges, and adults' uncertainty about how to modify physically active games to include them. Young children need adult guidance, support, and opportunities to be more active, and early care and education programs are a critical setting for physical activity promotion. Faculty at Northeastern University developed and pilot tested WE PLAY (Wellness Enhancing Physical Activity for Young Children), a teacher training, that is accessed online at no cost. WE PLAY was designed to promote physical activity at the child-level, to promote knowledge, confidence, and skills to lead active play at the teacher-level, and to impact social and environmental challenges at the program-level. Three three pilot studies demonstrated that WE PLAY was efficacious in increasing physical activity when implemented with preschoolers with and without autism and it was viewed as feasible, understandable, and acceptable by early childhood educators. This clinical trial will test the efficacy of WE PLAY in children with autism spectrum disorder and their teachers. The researchers hypothesized that at post-training and follow-up, children in the WE PLAY group will engage in higher levels of physical activity in school relative to children in the control group. Further, the researchers hypothesized that at post-training and follow-up teachers in the WE PLAY group will d