Award Date

5-1-2021

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Early Childhood, Multilingual, and Special Education

First Committee Member

Cori More

Second Committee Member

Jenna Weglarz-Ward

Third Committee Member

Tracy Spies

Fourth Committee Member

P.G. Schrader

Number of Pages

153

Abstract

Obesity in the United States is becoming a problem that negatively affects the life expectancy of young children, which for the first time in history is moving in the wrong direction (Ogden et al., 2014). According to obesity trend data, obesity has tripled in children from 5% in 1978 to 18.5% in 2016 (Anderson et al., 2019). For our students with disabilities, obesity rates are two times higher than students without disabilities (Neter et al., 2011). Although physical activity is considered an essential component of a young child’s health and development, the lack of physical activity attributes to the obesity problem (De Decker et al., 2014). This singlesubject, alternating treatment designed study compared the impact of a teacher led activity and a website, GoNoodle, interventions on students with disabilities’ step count as an indicator of physical activity particularly when limited access to outdoor activities is required such as during a pandemic. Four children with developmental disabilities participated in this study using a remote video platform. Results of the study suggest that both the teacher led activity and the GoNoodle increased physical activity in the young children with two participants increasing footsteps more with the GoNoodle intervention and the two participants with the teacher led activity. However, participants reported that they preferred the teacher led activity. This study examined how teachers and families can implement digital activities to engage children with disabilities in physical activity when outdoor activity is limited, recess is not available, or children need to find ways to be active indoors.

Keywords

Disabilities; Early Childhood; Teacher Led Intervention; Website Intervention

Disciplines

Education | Pre-Elementary, Early Childhood, Kindergarten Teacher Education | Special Education and Teaching

File Format

pdf

File Size

1469 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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