Original ArticleThe effect of child, family and environmental factors on the participation of young children with disabilities
Section snippets
Participants and procedure
Parents were recruited from the pediatric department of a major rehabilitation center in Quebec, Canada. Eligible participants had to be parents or legal guardians of children aged between 0 and 6 years old with underlying health conditions and/or functional issues, excluding children within their first year of having sustained a traumatic brain injury. Caregivers also had to be fluent in English and/or French. Families were initially approached by therapists at the rehabilitation center for
Participant characteristics
Out of the 147 families having given consent, 90 sets of questionnaires were returned to the research team resulting in a total return rate of 61%. Within the collected sample, most of the children were female (68.9%) and their ages ranged from 1.4 to 6 years old (mean = 4.15; SD = 1.03), where 51% of the children were below 4 years old. The mean number of health conditions reported by participants was 1.7 (SD = 0.92) and ranged from 1 to 6. The most commonly reported health conditions included
Discussion
The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of the participation patterns of young children with various disabilities in the home, preschool and community settings. More specifically, the results emphasize the significant and consistent impact that environmental factors have on participation.
Conclusions
This study emphasizes the role of the environment in supporting participation of young children with disabilities. Findings can re-direct practitioners' attention towards modifying the environment as a primary target of interventions aimed at promoting health through participation. This is of particular importance as the environment is likely more amenable to change in comparison to a child's complexity or severity of condition. Finally, this study's results can be of interest to policymakers
Prior presentations
This study has not been published and was not submitted elsewhere for publication while being considered by the Disability and Health Journal. This work has been presented two times, in a poster format, at the CAOT (Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists) and at the EACD (European Academy of Childhood Disability).
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. As the corresponding author, I certify that all funding information and conflict-of-interest disclosures are complete for both myself and my co-authors.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Lora Salvo and Alexandra Boxer for their contributions to the study.
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