What influences participation in leisure activities of children and youth with physical disabilities? A systematic review.
Motor, thinking, and talking skills plus age and gender decide how often kids with physical disabilities play outside therapy sessions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Leung et al. (2011) looked at every paper that asked why some kids with physical disabilities join more leisure activities than others.
They pulled studies on children and teens who had cerebral palsy, spina bifida, or other long-term motor limits.
The team coded which skills, ages, and traits predicted how often the kids played sports, did crafts, or met friends.
What they found
Four abilities stood out: big-muscle skills, hand use, thinking, and talking.
Older kids and boys also joined more often, but the data for very young or teen groups were thin.
No single factor told the whole story; it was the mix that mattered.
How this fits with other research
Bellon-Harn et al. (2020) later asked Australian adults with intellectual disability the same question and found the same gap: only half play sport versus three-quarters of typical adults.
Together the papers show the leisure gap starts in childhood and stays for life.
Austin et al. (2015) and Sutton et al. (2022) warn that cognitive-training studies for kids with ID still have weak designs, so we cannot yet fix the thinking piece of the puzzle.
M-Ohan et al. (2015) add that many kids with ADHD also have motor delays, so leisure barriers may cluster across diagnoses.
Why it matters
You already test gross motor, fine motor, and language skills. Add a quick question about weekend play.
If a child scores low in any area, plan leisure goals right in the ISP: ask parents what clubs exist, then teach the missing skill—pushing a joystick, asking to join, or following two-step rules.
Track one new activity per quarter; the review says even small gains in any skill can unlock more play.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In 2001 the International Classification of Functioning (ICF) defined participation as 'someone's involvement in life situations'. Participation in leisure activities contributes to the development of children and their quality of life. Children with physical disabilities are known to be at risk for participation in fewer activities. The group of children with physical disabilities is highly heterogeneous consisting of children with different diagnosis and different ages. This systematic review aims to analyse the literature for the purpose of looking for variables involved in the frequency of participation in leisure activities for children and youth with different diagnoses and ages. Frequency of participation in leisure activities for children and youth with physical disabilities is associated with a variety of variables. Gross motor function, manual ability, cognitive ability, communicative skills, age and gender are the most important variables. The current evidence suggests that similar variables seem to apply to children with different diagnoses. Age is an important variable in participation of children and youth. However evidence about those variables associated with children at different ages is still lacking.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2011.01.045