One of the more striking results emerging from this study is
that parents identified aspects of their own interaction with their
child as a barrier. Parental behaviours, such as anticipating their
child’s needs rather than allowing the child to voice them, were
thought to impede children’s opportunity to communicate and this
then affected activity and participation. This reflects the views of
McConachie et al. [21] who described the participation of
younger children with a disability as being intertwined with that
of their family and that family members are a potential key
influencing factor affecting participation. Within the CP literature, parental factors such as stress [10] and self-efficacy [36]
have been shown to impact on children’s participation, yet parents
identifying themselves as a barrier has not been widely
reported. Similar quantitative findings have been reported by
Rosenberg et al. [37] who found that parents of children with mild
developmental disabilities perceived that their child’s participation was most restricted by parental habits. Our finding suggests
parents should be made aware of techniques to develop communication to facilitate participation, and in turn this may lessen their
own perceived hindrances on their child’s participation.