A Cross-Sectional Examination of Movement Behaviours and Guideline Adherence Rates Among Preschool-Aged Children With Disabilities

Background

Meeting the 24-h movement behaviour guidelines (hereafter ‘guidelines’) supports healthy growth and development. It is recommended that preschool-aged children engage daily in 180 min of physical activity (PA), 60 min of which are moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA), along with less than 1 h of screen time and 10–13 h of sleep for optimal health. However, research on movement behaviours among children with disabilities in the early years is limited. This study aimed to describe movement behaviours and guideline adherence rates among preschool-aged children with disabilities.

Methods

A cross-sectional subanalysis was conducted of caregivers of young children (aged 4 years) with a disability (N = 31; 65% boys, 55% with a developmental disability) who were part of a Canadian study on movement behaviours in children and youth with disabilities. Caregiver-reported PA, screen time and sleep behaviours were collected using an online survey. Descriptive statistics were used to describe children's movement behaviours and proportion meeting the guidelines.

Results

On average, children engaged in 108 min (SD = 89.9) of total PA and 40 min (SD = 47.0) of MVPA per day. Children engaged in an average of 3.5 h (SD = 2.4) of screen time per day and slept an average of 10.6 h (SD = 1.0) per night. Overall, 23.1%, 6.9% and 79.3% of children met the guidelines for PA, screen time and sleep, respectively. One child (4.3%) met all three guidelines.

Conclusions

Few children with disabilities met the preschool-aged PA and screen time guidelines, though most met the sleep guideline. These findings highlight the need to further examine adherence of movement behaviour guidelines among a more representative sample of young children with disabilities and factors influencing adherence.