Heard and Seen: Developing Inclusive Activities for Enabling the Voices of Children with Disabilities in Oral Health Research

Abstract

The Convention on the Rights of the Child argues for children’s involvement in research. Oral health research frequently excludes children with disabilities and their voices. This study takes a rights-based approach by devising methods to include disabled children in oral health research. This is an ethnographic study. Methods utilized interviews, guided tours, symbols, drawings, pictures, and games. The selection of method depended on the ability and preference of each child. Using pictures and games as prompts enabled child participation. The guided tour activity facilitated the development of relationships with the children. It also increased their ability to chat informally and appeared to reduce power imbalances compared to formal, structured interviewing. Focus group interviews, symbols, and drawings acted as barriers to children’s participation. Involving children with disabilities in oral health research requires using appropriate methodological designs and innovative, pluralistic methods drawn from different disciplines. This promotes a rights-based approach, which recognizes diversity and aims to reduce the discrimination and disempowerment of children with disabilities.