Physical activity patterns of youth with Down syndrome.
Youth with Down syndrome sit 81 percent of the day and almost none hit activity guidelines.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers strapped accelerometers on the kids and teens with Down syndrome.
They tracked every minute of movement for seven days.
Ages ranged from 9 to 20 years old.
What they found
Kids sat still for 81 percent of their waking hours.
Only one child met the daily 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity.
Activity dropped sharply after age 13.
How this fits with other research
Dembo et al. (2023) extends this work to adults. They give exact cut-points you can use with hip accelerometers on older clients.
Geurts et al. (2008) and Waldron et al. (2023) show the adult fallout. Low activity in youth links to weak bones later.
Miltenberger et al. (2013) and Pan (2008) used the same accelerometer method with autism. They also found low movement, showing the problem spans diagnoses.
Why it matters
You now have hard numbers to share with parents. Most kids with Down syndrome move less than one-tenth of recommended levels. Build movement into every session. Even short dance breaks or hallway walks count. Start early, before the teen drop-off hits.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the physical activity patterns of children with Down syndrome. A cross-sectional approach and accelerometry were used to measure the time children with Down syndrome (N = 104) spent in sedentary, light, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Results indicated that adolescents from ages 14 to 15 years were the most sedentary and spent the least amount of time in light and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. A general trend of decreasing physical activity as children increase in age was found. This trend is similar to that found among typically developing youth. Participants in this study were found to spend a majority of their day engaged in sedentary activities. Results indicate that most participants were not accumulating the recommended 60 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity.
Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2012 · doi:10.1352/1934-9556-50.2.109