Poster #143 - Examining the Impact of COVID-19 on Children With and Without ASD and Their Play Opportunities

• In Event: Poster Session 14

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global public health crisis that has affected everyone worldwide and drastically changed the social landscape since the first reported case on December 31, 2019 (WHO, 2020). Part of this social landscape includes children’s ability to socially play with their peers. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social impairments, have been observed to initiate and reciprocate peer interactions much less frequently than their peers, including language-matched children with other developmental disabilities, without therapeutic intervention (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Frankel et al., 2011). Therefore, children with ASD could be at an increased risk of missing out on important social interactions during these unprecedented times. Moreover, studies have shown that parents of children with ASD are more likely to become vaccine hesitant due to concerns over vaccine safety and misinformation about the link between vaccines and ASD (Chang and Kochel, 2020; Sahni et al., 2020). As a result, children with ASD and their siblings are more likely to be unprotected or under-protected from infectious diseases such as influenza and, potentially including, COVID-19 (Tinker et al., 2021). So, while the availability of the vaccine could improve access to social play for some children, children with ASD may continue to be disproportionately impacted by a lack of access to social play. The current study aims to determine how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted children’s social play opportunities for those with and without ASD and to determine the effect of the authorization of use for the COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-12. This study is being implemented in two phases. Phase I of the study was conducted from June 23, 2021, to October 22, 2021, before the COVID-19 vaccine was available to this age group. During this phase, an anonymous online survey was distributed to parents of children ages 5-12 years and asked parents to report on their perceptions of play safety during the pandemic as well as their child’s play opportunities before and after the pandemic. Phase II of the study will consist of an anonymous online survey that asks parents to report on their perceptions of play safety since the COVID-19 vaccine became available to their children, their child’s play opportunities before and after the COVID-19 vaccine became available to their children, and their child’s vaccination status. Phase I findings show that parents are concerned about the safety of in-person peer interactions for their children during the pandemic, a decrease in play opportunities for children overall since the onset of the pandemic, and a significant group difference between children with ASD and their peers indicating that children with ASD have been disproportionately impacted by the decrease in social play opportunities. We predict that phase II will find that overall, parents will perceive in-person peer interactions as safer than prior to the vaccine being available, though children with ASD will still have significantly fewer social play opportunities than their peers and have lower vaccination rates than their peers.

Authors

• Jenni Koehler, University of Alabama, Birmingham
  Presenting Author

• Maria Hopkins, Universty of Alabama at Birmingham