INTRODUCTION: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been shown to possess relative strengths in processing visual stimuli as opposed to verbal stimuli (Tissot & Evans, 2003). Therefore, instructional strategies that use visual means and presentations are recommended over the traditional (verbal) instruction. The effectiveness of video modeling has been...
Increased physical activity (PA) in children has been linked to improved quality of life, as well as the establishment of life-long PA habits that lead to improved health outcomes. The literature suggests that children who participate in organized sport programs engage in more PA than children who do not. Notably,...
Pedometers have become a frequently used tool to measure physical activity. The accuracy of pedometers has been an interest of many researchers given the popularity of the tool. When, pedometers are employed, there are many potential sources of error, including missing data. Because previous studies indicated that the amount of...
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune condition that affects the central nervous system, and impacts the lives of over 400,000 individuals in the US. These individuals face unpredictable relapses of disabling conditions, are less active and experience poorer quality of life than the general population. Health professionals are challenged to...
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been reported to have motor skill delays and deficits. However, there have been challenges to these findings on whether these deficits are due to lack of movement skills or inaccurate assessment methods. Due to relative strengths in processing visual stimuli as opposed to...
Childhood obesity and physical inactivity are significant health problems. According to the CDC (2012), only 12.5% of high school students meet the recommended requirements for physical activity. One method to reverse this trend is promoting physical activity. The Walk to School Program promotes active transportation in schools nationwide. PURPOSE: The...
In recent years, there has been an increased interest in accurately measuring physical activity levels with accelerometers. Two distinct approaches have been used to estimate physical activity levels with accelerometers are vertical axis activity counts and vector magnitude (VM). Although previous studies evaluated these two distinct approaches for individuals without...
The promotion of out of school physical activity during physical education has received increasing attention as a tool for combating increasing sedentary time among youth. Qualitative work has shown that physical education teachers feel they lack the knowledge necessary to include physical activity promotion in their lessons and unprepared by...
Current literature supports the benefits of participation in extracurricular activities(Barnett & Weber, 2008). However, a report from the U.S. Government AccountabilityOffice (GAO) found that students with disabilities participated in athletics to varyingdegrees, but at consistently lower rates than students without disabilities (US GovernmentAccountability Office, 2010). In January 2013, in response...