Participation in Early Childhood Educational Environments for Young Children with and Without Developmental Disabilities and Delays: A Mixed Methods Study.
Tanya E Benjamin, Rachel G Lucas-Thompson, Lauren M Little and 2 others
PMID 26930134WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of children with developmental delays or disabilities reported less involvement and perceived less supportive daycare or preschool environments than parents of children without delays.
Parents wanting change most often described child-care tasks and peer groups, but this does not prove any strategy works.
Key findings
01Parents of children receiving services reported lower involvement in daycare or preschool activities and perceived less supportive environments than parents of children not receiving services.
02Parents of children receiving services reported less frequent participation and lower involvement in group learning, socializing with friends, and field trips or events than peers without developmental disabilities or delays.
03Among parents who wanted participation change, the most common strategies were child-care tasks (42.9%) and child peer groups (19.8%).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample was recruited by convenience and snowball sampling, so it may not represent parents of children who receive child care but are not enrolled in an early childhood educational program. Online data collection may have favored families with internet access and certain income levels, and the small subgroup size increased the chance of missing real differences. Only 37 children with developmental disabilities or delays were included, and their daycare or preschool programs varied in quality. The YC-PEM was developed and validated mainly in North America, so its meaning in other cultures is not established. Findings rely on parent report from people who are not usually present in the daycare or preschool setting, and parents often learn about participation indirectly from teachers. Data were collected primarily during summer months, which may have affected parents' responses about field trips and events. The study is cross-sectional and descriptive, so it cannot show that any parent strategy or service caused the reported participation differences. Most coding discrepancies, 73-84%, were reviewed by two coders, but one coder handled final queries, which may have introduced bias.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the reported parent strategies improve participation or that the YC-PEM can identify children who need therapy. This paper describes parents' perceptions and group differences in a daycare or preschool sample, not tested effects of intervention.