Exploring family activities and child engagement: A study on children with a significant cognitive and motor developmental delay

Abstract

Background: Everyday activities are an important setting for stimulating child functioning, but are understudied in young children with a significant cognitive and motor developmental delay. Therefore, we aim to characterize their family activities in terms of diversity, frequency, child engagement and family member's presence, compared to typically developing children.Methods: By asking a parent to fill out an adapted version of the Child Participation in Family Activities questionnaire, the activity pattern of 49 children within the study group and 45 children within the control group were assessed and compared.Results: Children in the study group generally experience less diverse activities (with an additional lower frequency of out-of-home activities) and show lower engagement levels compared to typically developing children. Conclusions:Incorporating high levels of personal interaction, highly stimulating activities and adapted leisure activities into the daily activity pattern of children with multiple disabilities might be a pathway to increased engagement levels. K E Y W O R D Schild engagement, family activities, profound and multiple disabilities, severe and multiple disabilities 780 |

Family Activities in Families Including a Young Child with a Significant Cognitive and Motor Developmental Delay: an Ecocultural Perspective

“…Participants were recruited in the context of a larger project on family activities (Van keer, Van Leeuwen, & Maes, 2019). In this project, more than 300 hospitals, diagnostic centers, early intervention teams and specialized day care centers were contacted in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium as well as the Netherlands in order to recruit the DD-group.…”

Participation and engagement in family activities among girls and young women with Rett syndrome living at home with their parents – a cross-sectional study

“…Similar results were also found in three other studies. Thus, "Being with family and friends", "Listening to music" and "Watching TV/DVD/films" were highly enjoyed activities among girls and women with RTT [15], and the activities "Playing with a person indoor", "Having dinner together", "Visiting relatives" and "Listening to music" were frequently occurring with a high degree of participation and engagement among children and youth with PIMD [11,21,30]. Still, "Playing board games", "Doing handicraft" and "Playing instruments" all showed a low frequency of occurrence and low participation and engagement among the girls and young women with RTT.…”