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Do we need norms of fitness for children with autistic spectrum condition?
Author(s) -
Place Maurice,
Dickinson Kathleen,
Reynolds Joanna
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
british journal of special education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.349
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1467-8578
pISSN - 0952-3383
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8578.12074
Subject(s) - cardiorespiratory fitness , physical fitness , autistic spectrum , body mass index , obesity , test (biology) , cardiovascular fitness , psychology , correlation , medicine , developmental psychology , gerontology , physical therapy , clinical psychology , demography , autism , mathematics , paleontology , geometry , pathology , biology , sociology
The increasingly sedentary habits of children, and rising obesity levels, are prompting concern for children's future health. Children with autistic spectrum condition ( ASC ) show a clear trend in this regard. Within school, an understanding of how an individual's fitness compares to age norms is important in order to design appropriate exercise programmes. This study, by M aurice P lace, K athleen D ickinson and J oanna R eynolds, all based at N orthumbria University, assessed 100 children with ASC and learning difficulty, and found a wide variation in fitness levels as measured by the E urofit tests. In addition the measure of cardio‐pulmonary fitness ( VO 2 max ) was generally poor. In boys, body mass index ( BMI ) showed only a modest correlation with this measure of cardio‐pulmonary fitness, with the results for the girls not being significant. Using a variant of the established BMI calculation did not improve the correlation. To our knowledge this article offers the first set of published E urofit test results for children with ASC and highlights the generally poor level of cardio‐pulmonary fitness in this group of children.