Steps Counts of Children with Intellectual Disability

Abstract

The purpose of the current study, was to determine daily step counts of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and the effect of ID on schooldays vs weekend, during school hours vs the remaining ones and finally during days with adapted physical education class (APE) vs without APE class. This study involved a total of forty-one individuals (N = 41), who were enrolled in structures of Special Education. According to the medical examination of Center for Differential Diagnosis, Diagnosis and Support (CDDDS) students
were diagnosed with mild, moderate or severe ID (light = 12, moderate in 19, severe = 10, mean age = 24.3 years + 9.5 years). Nineteen participants (n = 19) were boys and twenty two (n = 22) were girls. Physical activity (number of steps), was measured using pedometers where the number of daily steps was recorded during a full week. According to the results, the participants performed 6.459 ± 2.766 steps per school day, while the corresponding value for the days of the weekend was 4.473 ± 2.797. During the hours of structures corresponding values were 2.896 ± 119 for the remainder of the day was 3.563 ± 2.185. Additionally, the number of steps for the days that the curriculum included an APE class amounted to 4.426 ± 1.955, while the days the corresponding value was 2.293 ± 1.393. Finally, statistically significant differences were observed in the above step counts among people diagnosed with different levels of ID. In conclusion, the step numbers recorded for participants with ID are lower than those reported for those typical age-matched growth in both our country and internationally. Additionally, the results confirmed that APE can significantly increase
the daily number of steps and that people with heavy ID, performed significantly fewer step counts when compared to the ones with light ID findings that are in agreement with the ones of reported in the literature.