The purpose and rationale of this study is to see if there are barriers to physical activity. If there is barriers try to work out what they are and

The purpose and rationale of this study is to see if there are barriers to physical activity. If there is barriers try to work out what they are and why they occur. This will then help with how to work around these barriers and will give more of an understanding on how to prevent them. This would be massively beneficial to adolescents with ASD as a side effect of the medication they are often given is weight gain, so without physical activity they may not be able to lose much weight. This would also be beneficial as a study already shows there are many physical benefits to physical activity especially for people with ASD. These physical benefits can include improved physiological, cognitive, psychological, and behavioural functioning (Sorensen & Zarrett, 2014).

Methods and design:

The design for this study would be narrative enquiry as it is the narrative truth this means it is their own experiences and events that have happened, they will create a story with what they have witnessed and experienced. The method for this study will include interviews and questionnaires. All questionnaires will be sent out to participants prior to the study. Semi structured interviews would be used to collect data as it allows the interviewer to gain insights into and understanding opinions, attitudes, experiences, processes, behaviours, and predictions. Semi structured interviews would also be beneficial as the researcher will be able to explain the question in more detail if the question is not fully understood.

Please describe how potential participants will be

a) identified,including howyou will select them (your sampling strategy) and any criteria for selection e.g. inclusion / exclusion criteria;

b) recruited, including who will contact them and method of contact.

Convenience sampling would be used to initiate the start of recruitment, for this study it means that it would be an easily accessible parent to an adolescent with ASD in the Northeast. To recruit further participants snowball sampling will be used which means new participants will be recruited by other participants. The inclusion criteria for this study is fairly simple, this means if you are a parent of an adolescent with a diagnosis of ASD aged between 8-18, if you live in the Northeast England.

For recruitment a questionnaire would be emailed

The participant group that would be recruited for this study is parents/carers of adolescents in the Northeast, however the adolescents must have autism spectrum disorder. To decide who is suitable in the study a questionnaire would be answered and if the criteria is not met then they will be excluded from the study. The inclusion criteria for this study are quite simple. The inclusion criteria for this study would be: if you are a parent of an adolescent with a diagnosis of ASD aged between 8-18, if you live in the Northeast England. In this study parents were the participants as it is parents that influence physical activity on their child as they grow older. In the study there will be around 10 participants.

Consent form:

Risk assessment:

Dear Sir/Madame,

I am writing this email as you are a gatekeeper to potential participants for research I am conducting for a dissertation. I am writing this email as for the research that is being carried out, I need to recruit 10 participants. These participants are parents of 818-year-old Adolescents with ASD.

The research is to see if there are any barriers to physical exercise for adolescents with ASD. If there are barriers try to work out what they are and why they occur. This will then help with how to work around these barriers and will give more of an understanding on how to prevent them. I decided to use parents as participants because parents have witnessed what is happening to their child. The child would most likely not be able to answer the questions. Parents also have a big impact on their childs life especially when it comes to extracurricular etc.Participants will be asked to take part in an interview and answer some questions about their child.

Regards,

Paige

-534242-8900

Parents perspective of physical activity participation and the barriers of physical activity in the Northeast among adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. A qualitative study.Anonymous marking code: Z0161161

BSc Sport and Exercise Sciences

Word Count:

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank and acknowledge my dissertation supervisor Patrick Jachyra for the help and support throughout this research project. I would also like to thank Marcus Stoutenberg for the support I received from him in the short time he became my supervisor. This project would not have been possible without the participants that took the time to be a part of this project so a special thanks to every participant, without you the dissertation would not have been possible as there would have been no data to analyse. Finally I would like to thank my friends and family for all of the support provided by them over the course of the project.

Abstract

Table of Contents

TOC o "1-3" h z u Acknowledgements PAGEREF _Toc165318429 h 2Abstract PAGEREF _Toc165318430 h 3Introduction PAGEREF _Toc165318431 h 5Literature review PAGEREF _Toc165318432 h 6Methods PAGEREF _Toc165318433 h 7Research design PAGEREF _Toc165318434 h 7Results PAGEREF _Toc165318435 h 8Discussion PAGEREF _Toc165318436 h 9Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc165318437 h 10

Introduction

Literature review

MethodsIn this chapter the studys research design will be explored, recruitment of participants, ethical considerations, data collection and data analysis will be explained. The anonymity and welfare of the participants were considered at every stage to ensure the study was ethically correct.

Research designQualitative research is very important in educational research as it addresses the how and why research questions and enables deeper understanding of experiences, phenomena, and context. (Cleland, 2017)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

Interview questions

Do you think physical activity is beneficial?

How old is your child?

How well does your child communicate?

Do they communicate through words/ gestures?

How much does your child take part in physical activity?

Do you think physical activity is easily accessible for you child?

If not what would you say the barriers are?

Do you think that the barriers are because your child has ASD?

What would you say some of the barriers your child has faced within physical activity during theyre adolescents?

Does your child have many friends that take part in activity?