University of Virginia, 417 Emmet St. S, Charlottesville, VA, 22903, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2024 Dec;54(12):4444-4455. doi: 10.1007/s10803-023-06158-5. Epub 2023 Oct 28.
Internalizing conditions, such as anxiety and depression, and difficulties with developing and maintaining friendships are common among autistic children and adolescents. Participation in extracurricular activities may buffer against these challenges as they provide naturalistic opportunities to bring peers with shared interests and skills together. As such, the purpose of the current study was to examine associations between sport and club participation and (1) friendship success and (2) co-occurring anxiety and depression in a large sample of autistic youth.
Secondary analysis was performed using data from the 2018-2019 National Survey of Children's Health. Participants were 562 autistic children (ages 6-11 years) and 818 autistic adolescents (ages 12-17 years). Within each age group, a series of binary logistic regression analyses were conducted.
Club participation was not associated with friendship or internalizing conditions. However, participation in sports was positively associated with friendship success among both children (OR = 2.07, p = .006) and adolescents (OR = 2.35, p = .001). Results also found that adolescents who participated in sports were 34% less likely to have diagnosis of depression (p = .048).
Findings suggest that participation in sports may play a meaningful role in protecting against depression during adolescence and serve as a context for friendship development across childhood and adolescence. Future research should address barriers to extracurricular activity participation and identify the specific components of sports that are most beneficial to autistic youth to inform activity offerings and the development of interventions targeting friendship formation and mental health outcomes.
焦虑和抑郁等内化问题，以及发展和维持友谊的困难，在自闭症儿童和青少年中很常见。参加课外活动可以缓解这些挑战，因为它们为有共同兴趣和技能的同龄人提供了自然的机会。因此，本研究的目的是在一个大型自闭症青年样本中，考察运动和俱乐部参与与（1）友谊成功和（2）同时出现的焦虑和抑郁之间的关联。
使用 2018-2019 年全国儿童健康调查的数据进行二次分析。参与者包括 562 名自闭症儿童（6-11 岁）和 818 名自闭症青少年（12-17 岁）。在每个年龄组中，都进行了一系列二项逻辑回归分析。
俱乐部参与与友谊或内化状况无关。然而，运动参与与儿童（OR=2.07，p=0.006）和青少年（OR=2.35，p=0.001）的友谊成功呈正相关。结果还发现，参加运动的青少年患抑郁症的诊断率降低了 34%（p=0.048）。
研究结果表明，运动参与可能在保护青少年免受抑郁方面发挥重要作用，并为儿童和青少年时期的友谊发展提供了一个背景。未来的研究应该解决课外活动参与的障碍，并确定对自闭症青年最有益的运动的具体组成部分，为活动提供信息，并制定针对友谊形成和心理健康结果的干预措施。
