Participation Patterns of Adolescents with and without Executive Function Deficits: Parents’ Perspectives

ABSTRACT

This study examines parents’ perspectives of the participation patterns (frequency, involvement, and parental desire for change) in their adolescent children’s everyday functioning with and without executive function deficit profiles. Parents of 81 adolescents (10–14) years) with executive function deficits (n = 41) and a matched group of parents of adolescents with typical development (n = 40) completed the Participation and Environment Measure for Children and Youth (PEM-CY) questionnaire. The questionnaire includes the adolescents’ participation frequency and involvement in common everyday functions in three environments (home, school, and community) and parental desire for change. Parents of adolescents with executive function deficits reported that their children participated significantly less (in frequency and involvement) in many activities within each environment than parents of typically developing adolescents reported. Additional significant group differences were evident, particularly when comparing parental desires to change their adolescent children’s participation. Each environment’s characteristics regarding the structure level and different activity demands are discussed as a possible reason for these differences in participation. The challenges and complexity of raising a child with everyday functioning difficulties might be one reason for the differences in parents’ desire for change.

KEYWORDS:

• Everyday functioning
• frequency
• level of involvement
• desire to change
• activity demands

Acknowledgments

We thank Ms. Renana Hirsh for collecting the data and Dr. Liron Lamash for consulting on data processing of the questionnaire.

Consent

All potential participants who met the inclusion criteria and their parents signed consent forms and were informed of the study’s risks and benefits, that their participation was voluntary and that their identity would not be disclosed. All data were handled anonymously by serial numbers and stored in a secured closet accessible to only the principal investigator.

Contributorship

Yael Fogel researched literature, applied for ethical approval, collected the data and carried out the statistical analysis, and wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the methodology of the project, interpreted the data, and reviewed and approved the final version.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Research Ethics

This study was approved by the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa ethics committee (approval numbers 253/13).

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.