Abstract
Children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) often report significant difficulties performing activities of daily living (ADLs), which may restrict their daily participation. The aim of this study was to investigate the differences in ADLs participation between children with NDDs and typically developing (TD) children, and to explore the associations between different daily participation contexts. A cross-sectional study was conducted that included twenty children with a medical diagnosis of an NDD and 26 sex- and age-matched TD controls. The daily participation across home, community, school, and instrumental living activities was measured using the Child and Adolescent Scale of Participation (CASP). The results show that children with NDDs engaged in lower participation in all CASP contexts (Δ = 1.7–5.5, p < 0.001) and had a significantly higher prevalence of moderate or severe restricted participation than their TD peers (OR = 23.4, 95% CI = 3.6–154.2, p < 0.001). Additionally, a strong association was found between the different contexts of participation (r = 0.642–0.856). Overall, the children with NDDs experienced significant participation restrictions on their daily activities. This study adds to the growing evidence showing that intervention strategies in this population should adopt a participation-oriented approach.
Highlights
Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are a group of conditions with onset in the early developmental period and comprise a broad group of developmental deficits in the brain function that affect physical, social, academic, and occupational functioning [1,2]
The internal consistency values of the Child and Adolescent Scale of Participation (CASP) were adequate for both the overall sample (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.9) and for the two groups of participants (TD = 0.7, neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) = 0.9)
Most of the items were scored, indicating that the activities were relevant for the child, and only item 9, item 14, and item 19 received no applicable scores (n = 1, n = 1, and n = 14, respectively)
Summary
Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are a group of conditions with onset in the early developmental period and comprise a broad group of developmental deficits in the brain function that affect physical, social, academic, and occupational functioning [1,2] These disorders constitute the most frequent conditions for disability and participation restriction during childhood and are more frequent in males than females [3]. Reported estimates of the prevalence of DCD in schoolchildren usually range between 5 and 6% [11,12,13] but recent studies have found that up to 12.0% of Spanish children are at risk of DCD [14,15]. While the prevalence estimates of ASDs are significantly lower, with approximately
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