Effects of a Long-Term Adapted Judo Program on the Health-Related Physical Fitness of Children with ASD

Emanuela Pierantozzi, José Morales (), David H. Fukuda, Vanessa Garcia, Antonia M. Gómez, Myriam Guerra-Balic and Eduardo Carballeira
Additional contact information
Emanuela Pierantozzi: Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health, University of Genoa, 1700 Genoa, Italy
José Morales: Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna—Ramon Llull University, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
David H. Fukuda: School of Kinesiology & Physical Therapy, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
Vanessa Garcia: Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna—Ramon Llull University, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Antonia M. Gómez: Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna—Ramon Llull University, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Myriam Guerra-Balic: Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna—Ramon Llull University, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Eduardo Carballeira: Department of Physical Education and Sport, University of A Coruna, 15179 Oleiros, Spain

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 24, 1-14

Abstract: Physical fitness is one of the most important physical and mental health aspects for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This study aimed to test the effects of a long-term adapted judo program on the health-related physical fitness of children with ASD. The participants were recruited from various associations of families and schools for children with special needs. Twenty-one children were assigned to an experimental group and nineteen to a control group. The experimental group participated in a six-month adapted judo program consisting of 90 min of practice each week. Health-related physical fitness was measured using the indicators obtained from the ALPHA-fitness battery, the estimated VO 2 max and the waist/height ratio 0.5 . Changes within and between groups were analyzed using linear mixed models for repeated measures designs and test-retest reliability of tests requiring a maximum score using the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC). A judo program tailored for children with ASD can improve the cardio-metabolic health and cardiorespiratory fitness of its participants. The problems involved with administering physical aptitude tests that involve maximum effort or performance in children with ASD cast serious doubts on the reproducibility of their results.

Keywords: combat sports; autism; intellectual disabilities; adapted sports; non-exercise equation; waist circumference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16731/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16731/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:24:p:16731-:d:1002018

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().