An Investigation on the Influence of Parental Physical Activity on Physical Activity Behaviours of Children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder

Abstract

As children grow and develop there are many factors that play a role in influencing a child. Physical activity (PA) is important for children and youth development. Parents are widely acknowledged as significant influences in various aspects of their children’s lives, particularly serving as role models for PA. In the literature pertaining to this topic, multiple findings support the notion of a positive influence of parental PA on their child’s PA (Barkin et al., 2017; 2017; Song et al., 2017; Xu et al., 2018). The aim of this thesis was to investigate the relationship between parent and child PA over time through device-assessed measures. Additionally, this thesis will examine whether a distinction exists in the relationship between parent PA and PA of typically developing (TD) children and children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The current study will utilize data from the Coordination and Activity Tracking in children study. This study will look at 330 child-parent dyads (TD=204; DCD=126) by utilizing the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) through path analysis. For this study the APIM looks at the relationship between parent and child PA. The actor effects represent the effect of the participants own PA on their future PA. The partner influences represent the impact of the participants PA on their partners PA. Three models were utilized, the first examining the full sample and then subsequently stratifying the children into TD and DCD groups. For the APIM it was found that there were significant actor effects for both parent and child meaning that their PA was predictive of their future PA, which was consistence across all three models. There were no significant partner influences in each of the APIM models indicating that parent and child PA were not predictive of each other at any timepoint. Overall, the results of this study reveal that there is no evident relationship between parent and child PA over time, regardless of whether they belong to the TD or DCD group. These findings emphasize the need for standardized accelerometer processes to enhance result consistency and reliability when investigating the relationship between parent and child PA.