Parents as a Team: Mother, Father, a Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and a Spinning Toy

A Novel Data-Driven Approach to Examine Children's Movements and Social Behaviour in Schoolyard Environments

(1) Many children in schoolyards are excluded from social interactions with peers on a daily basis. For these excluded children, schoolyard environments often contain features that hinder, rather than facilitate, their participation. These features may include lack of appropriate play equipment, overcrowded areas, or insufficient supervision. These can generate negative situations, especially for children with special needs-such as attention deficit or autism-which includes 10% of children worldwide. All children need to be able to participate in their social environment in order to engage in social learning and development. For children living with a condition that limits access to social learning, barriers to schoolyard participation can further inhibit this. Given that much physical development also occurs as a result of schoolyard play, excluded children may also be at risk for reduced physical development. (2) However, empirically examining schoolyard environments in order to understand existing obstacles to participation requires huge amounts of detailed, precise information about play behaviour, movement, and social interactions of children in a given environment from different layers around the child (physical, social, and cultural). Recruiting this information has typically been exceedingly difficult and too expensive. In this preliminary study, we present a novel sensor data-driven approach for gathering information on social interactions and apply it, in light of schoolyard affordances and individual effectivities, to examine to what extent the schoolyard environment affects children's movements and social behaviours. We collected and analysed sensor data from 150 children (aged 5-15 years) at two primary special education schools in the Netherlands using a global positioning system tracker, proximity tags, and Multi-Motion Receivers to measure locations, face-to-face interactions, and activities. Results show strong potential for this data-driven approach to examine the triad of physical, social, and cultural affordances in schoolyards. (3) First, we found strong potential in using our sensor data-driven approach for collecting data from individuals and their interactions with the schoolyard environment. Second, using this approach, we identified and discussed three schoolyard affordances (physical, social, and cultural) in our sample data. Third, we discussed factors that significantly impact children's movement and social behaviours in schoolyards: schoolyard capacity, social use of space, and individual differences. Better knowledge on the impact of these factors could help identify limitations in existing schoolyard designs and inform school officials, policymakers, supervisory authorities, and designers about current problems and practical solutions. This data-driven approach could play a crucial role in collecting information that will help identify factors involved in children's effective movements and social behaviour.

Psychological impact of Covid-19 pandemic in Italian families of children with neurodevelopmental disorders

Research on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted negative effects on the general population and particularly on parents. However, little is known about families of children with Neurodevelopmental Disorder (NDD). The present study investigated parental stress, coparenting, and child adjustment in Italian families with children with NDD (N = 82) and typical developing children (TD, N = 82) during lockdown, using an online survey. Results of quantitative analyses showed a significant increase in parental stress and child externalizing behaviors, but not of coparenting. Parental stress is predicted by externalizing behaviors, and coparenting acted as a moderator in the relationship between the change in the amount of time spent with the children before and during lockdown and parental stress. In children with NDD, the decrease in therapeutic/rehabilitation support predicted higher externalizing behaviors. Qualitative analysis showed that beyond the difficulties and worries arising during lockdown, most of the parents appreciated the opportunity of spending more time with their children and strengthening the parent-child relationship. In conclusion, our results point out the importance of ensuring continuity of care for children with NDD (e.g. telehealth) during home confinement and of providing psychological support for parents.

Co-Parenting Quality, Parenting Stress, and Feeding Challenges in Families with a Child Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder

113 parents of children aged 5-13 with ASD completed online surveys assessing co-parenting quality, parenting stress, and child feeding challenges. Results indicated that food selectivity was both the most frequently reported type of challenging feeding behavior and the most often reported as problematic but was also the only type of challenging feeding behavior that was not associated with parenting stress. Greater parenting stress was reported when co-parenting agreement and support were lower. Child disruptive behavior at mealtime was the only feeding challenge associated with quality of co-parenting. This paper points to the importance of addressing feeding challenges in addition to selectivity, such as disruptive mealtime behaviors, and doing so within the context of the family and home environment.