Effects of a School-Based Physical Activity Intervention on Children with Intellectual Disability: A Cluster Randomised Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Importance Young people living with disability have poorer health outcomes than their typically developing peers. They are less physically active and at increased risk of chronic disease. Teacher-led, whole-of-school physical activity interventions are promising levers for population-level change, but are seldom tested among children with disability. Objective To evaluate the effect of a blended teacher-professional learning program (online and in-person) on fundamental movement skills among children with disability. Design, Setting, and Participants In this cluster randomised clinical trial, we randomised 20 government-funded primary schools, including 238 consenting students between Grades 2-5. Ten schools received the blended teacher-professional learning intervention and 10 received the control intervention. The professional learning was designed to support teachers as they implemented a whole-of-school intervention designed to enhance fundamental movement skills and increase physical activity levels. Recruitment and baseline assessments occurred in 2020. Research assistants, blinded to treatment allocation, completed follow-up outcome assessments at 21 months. Interventions The school-based intervention was mostly online learning for teachers, followed by one lesson observation from a project mentor and one from a peer. Between one and three teachers also met quarterly with the mentor to plan whole-of-school strategies to promote activity. Main Outcomes and Measures Test of Gross Motor Development-3 test of fundamental movement skill competency. Secondary outcomes were self-concept, enjoyment, wellbeing, 300-yard run time, and accelerometer-measured physical activity. Results We found no significant group-by-time effects for the primary outcome (fundamental movement skill competency: b = 1.07 [95% CI -3.70, 5.84], p = .658) or any of the secondary outcomes. About half the teachers assigned to the training completed the modules. Conclusions and Relevance In this study, a school-based intervention did not improve children’s fundamental movement skill competency or any other outcomes. Results may be attenuated by the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic due to reduced teacher participation and delayed post-test measurement. Alternatively, low intensity teacher-professional learning interventions may not be enough to improve motor competence or physical activity among children with intellectual disability. Key Points Question Does a blended-learning intervention for teachers improve fundamental movement skills among children with intellectual disability? Findings In this cluster randomised clinical trial of 20 schools and 238 children, a blended teacher-professional learning intervention did not improve fundamental movement skill competency at 21 months. Meaning Given similar programs increased outcomes among typically developing children, results of this randomised clinical trial suggest different models are needed to support children with disability.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.013 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".