Exploring parents' experiences of promoting physical activity for their child with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Physical inactivity is a growing international public health concern (World Health Organization, 2018). The need to address physical inactivity is particularly important for children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities, who participate in low levels of physical activity and are significantly less active than their typically developing peers (Boddy, Downs, Knowles, & Fairclough, 2015; Einarsson et al., 2015). These low levels of physical activity are insufficient to gain the clinically meaningful physical and mental health benefits associated with physical activity (Ahn & Fedewa, 2011; Biddle & Asare, 2011; Janssen & LeBlanc, 2010). Since children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities have various chronic health conditions and experience significant health inequalities, such as an increased prevalence of anxiety and obesity and reduced cardiorespiratory and muscular function, promoting physical activity is therefore essential to improve the health of this population (Maiano, 2010; Oeseburg, Dijkstra, Groothoff, Reijneveld, & Jansen, 2011). Children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities, however, face numerous barriers to being physically active. The socioecological model provides a useful framework for categorizing types of barriers as either intrapersonal, interpersonal, organisational or environmental, and has been used in previous studies which have categorized barriers to physical activity faced by children with intellectual disabilities (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Must, Phillips, Curtin, & Bandini, 2015). Using this framework, existing research demonstrates that children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities face intrapersonal barriers relating to their disabilities, such as

Perceived Barriers of Physical Activity Participation in Individuals with Intellectual Disability—A Systematic Review

“…When consensus was not possible, a third researcher was invited to collaborate (AV). The scale's scoring intervals received corresponding levels of quality: excellent (26)(27)(28); good (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25); fair (15)(16)(17)(18)(19); and poor (≤14). However, as fifteen questions (questions 8, 10-12, 14-17 and 21-27) were not applicable to all studies analyzed, they were removed.…”

“…Through the systematic review process, we identified five studies: three other studies from Europe (Italy [20], United Kingdom [21,22]), one from Oceania (Australia [23]) and another from North America (USA [24]). Although all studies use a qualitative methodology, we can see different designs.…”

“…At the same time, some studies analyzed facilitators and recommendations for participating in PA. In terms of age group, one of the studies does not refer the age of the individuals with ID [21], three other studies have samples from young adolescents [20,22,24] and one study is focused on elderly participants [23].…”

“…Cartwright et al [21] used different topics for different groups: seven for individuals with ID themselves, seven for family members and caregivers and four topics for the project leaders. McGarty et al [22] used four main topics in the semi-structured interview (to family members). Stanish et al [24] chose to use the questionnaire and passed it on to the participants in the form of a rigid interview, which is easy to answer, in both groups of participants.…”

Kelayakan produk pengembangan tutorial aktivitas fisik bagi anak berkebutuhan khusus saat pandemi

“…Latihan aktivitas yang fun ini merupakan serangkaian kegiatan yang kreatif dan hampir semua aktivitas kreatif bisa menjadi terapi bagi para penyandang ABK (Thorpe, 2020). Pemberian latihan ini menjadi tantangan yang menarik ketika secara empiris terbukti bahwa beberapa orang tua ABK memiliki sifat eksklusif dan stigma negatif yang berdampak pada rendahnya partisipasi ABK dalam aktivitas fisik (McGarty et al, 2021). Untuk itu, perlu media yang cocok dalam memberikan dukungan kepada orang tua sehingga mereka mengurangi sifat eksklusif sehingga ABK dapat tetap melakukan aktivitas fisik di masa pandemic.…”