Fitness, Fun and Friends through Participation in Preferred Physical Activities: Achievable for Children with Disabilities?

Abstract

This study investigates the preferences for actual participation in and enjoyment of physical out-of-school activities in children with physical disabilities, including what particular activities they are actually participating in, how often, with whom, where, and how enjoyable they find these activities. The data are based on structured interviews with 149 children (67 girls (45%) and 82 boys (55%) from 6 to 17 years) who were attending three weeks of intensive rehabilitation at Beitostølen Healthsports Centre in Norway. The Children’s Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment and Preferences for Activities of Children scales were administered at the start of their rehabilitation stays. The study reveals a quite high level of participation in physical activity and a high degree of enjoyment in participating, but the children want to be even more active than they already are. They have clear preferences for activities, and these activities are to a large extent consistent with what they actually do during their leisure time. The children are most frequently active with family members, but they would prefer to be more active with peers. A prerequisite would therefore be to acquire better basic skills and competencies in a few chosen activities rather than having some experiences in a broad range of different activities. There are more similarities than differences between boys and girls and between age groups on the parameters investigated in this study.

Keywords:

• Children
• disabilities, enjoyment
• fitness
• friends
• participation
• physical activity
• preferences

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the children, parents, therapist and researcher assistants who participated in this project. Inge Morisbak from Beitostoelen Healthsport Centre is acknowledged for valuable comments on both the content and the language of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.