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Background: Physical exercise (PE) is important for health. Girls are reported to participate less compared to boys. Multiple factors influence participation and non-participation, including neighborhood, socioeconomic status, social support, and disability. Factors may combine and form paths to participation or non-participation, yet these paths are unknown. To our knowledge, this is the first study to combine cluster analysis with a configurational comparative method to explore paths to participation and non-participation in PE among adolescents.

Methods: Data from 178 Swedish 15–18-year-olds revealed two exercise-related clusters: Not exercising and Sporting & Exercising. Girls and boys in these clusters were analyzed separately by coincidence analysis to identify paths leading to membership in each cluster. The initial analysis included 41 questions aggregated into 24 variables.

Results: Not having quick access to pocket money is a path by itself to Not exercising among girls and part of the path to Sporting & Exercising. The paths to Not exercising are more complex for boys. Participation in adult-led activities differs between boys in the Not exercising and Sporting & Exercising clusters. Having a disability is only a difference-making factor among boys when combined with “not avoiding anyone in the neighborhood” and “sometimes meeting friends in person.”

Conclusion: Multiple distinct paths lead to Sporting & Exercising and Not exercising, and these differ between girls and boys. Paths to exercising and non-exercising can be multi-factorial in nature, where several factors must be jointly present to explain membership in a particular exercise-related cluster. Future research may wish to adopt a similar configurational approach to explore other high-priority activities in which adolescents do or do not participate to improve interventions and policies aimed at increasing adolescent participation in PE.

Background: Movement is important for preschool-aged children’s development. Developing physical literacy at an early age can benefit children’s health and their relationship with movement and physical activity in the long term. This study aimed to explore preschool children’s perspectives on their physical literacy, focusing on its core components: knowledge and understanding, motivation, self-confidence, and physical competence.

Methods: A qualitative study was conducted at six Swedish preschools, with 25 preschool children aged five to six years as participants. Semi-structured interviews were carried out, and the interviews were audio- and video-recorded, transcribed, and analysed through a deductive content analysis.

Results: Children want to move and enjoy movement. They experience movement as connected to their feelings and they are motivated to move when it feels good and it is fun. Their motivation for movement also comes from inclusion in preschool decision-making, teachers’ participation in play, and opportunities to play with friends. The children express confidence in their movement skills, show awareness of their abilities, and display a variety of age-appropriate movements. They challenge themselves and draw inspiration from their peers in movement activities. Overall, the findings highlight the children’s awareness of their motivation, well-being, and abilities alongside the emotional aspects that make movement meaningful for them.

Conclusions: This study contributes to the limited research on preschool children’s physical literacy by showing that children’s motivation for movement is connected to how movement makes them feel. Thus, from the children’s perspective, the affective domain of physical literacy is recognised as central to their engagement in movement. Including children’s perspective advances the understanding of physical literacy and underscores the importance of considering the children’s experiences when promoting physical literacy in both research and practice.

Highlights What are the main findings? Children with ADHD, as a group, have lower time-processing ability and autonomy compared to typically developing children, but daily time management is also lower than that of children with ID. Children with ADHD and children with ID have the same overall pattern of time-processing ability, but it may be delayed in relation to the typically developing children. What are the implications of the main findings? The delayed time-processing ability in children with ADHD could affect their daily time management and autonomy. The overall findings indicate the need to measure children's time-processing ability and their daily time management to tailor a suitable intervention for each child who needs it.Highlights What are the main findings? Children with ADHD, as a group, have lower time-processing ability and autonomy compared to typically developing children, but daily time management is also lower than that of children with ID. Children with ADHD and children with ID have the same overall pattern of time-processing ability, but it may be delayed in relation to the typically developing children. What are the implications of the main findings? The delayed time-processing ability in children with ADHD could affect their daily time management and autonomy. The overall findings indicate the need to measure children's time-processing ability and their daily time management to tailor a suitable intervention for each child who needs it.Abstract Background: Children with ADHD and children with intellectual disability (ID) often have problems with daily time management (DTM). It is, however, less well-known how the underlying time-processing ability (TPA) may impact children's DTM and autonomy. The purpose of this study was to investigate DTM, TPA, and self-rated autonomy in the activities of everyday life among children aged 9-15 years with and without disabilities. Methods: The participants were matched samples of children with ADHD (n = 47), with ID (n = 47), and typically developing (TD) children (n = 47). A descriptive, comparative, and cross-sectional design was used. Group comparisons with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Tukey post-hoc tests, bootstrapping, and a cluster analysis were used to analyze the data. Results: Children with ADHD and children with ID had significantly lower TPA and DTM than TD children. Children with ADHD had even lower DTM than those with ID. Children with ADHD and ID have the same overall pattern of TPA, but it may be delayed, affecting their DTM and autonomy. However, there was considerable heterogeneity among the children with ADHD and ID, ranging from skilled to having significant problems in TPA. For all children, the levels of self-rated autonomy seemed to follow the level of TPA. Conclusions: Children with ADHD and children with ID have an increased risk of delayed TPA, affecting their DTM and autonomy, which may also influence their participation in daily activities. The results indicate a need to measure TPA and DTM to tailor interventions for each child.

In this paper, we propose that physical literacy should be conceptualized in relation to, and as interconnected with, health literacy rather than as a distinct and separate form of literacy, as is often presented. Furthermore, we contend that this approach should be more centrally integrated into health interventions that target health in general, as well as specific aspects aimed at determinants of health, such as physical activity. Rather than focusing on isolated actions or behaviours, a literacy-centred model empowers individuals with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed for sustained engagement in healthy practices. Integrating these literacies within intervention models bridges the gap between knowing and doing. This offers a holistic pathway to promoting lifelong relationships and responsibility for health and improving population health outcomes. We also want to draw attention to the importance of aiming to increase literacy at higher levels, as it is a variable that influences the relationship between health and poor social and economic conditions. However, it is important to engage in the difference between using literacies to displace responsibility on the individual and engaging in literacies as a component in interventions as an approach to sustainable action.

Research Findings: In Swedish preschools, second-language learners often display lower engagement in activity settings than first-language learners. This study used a multilevel model to examine the association between children’s language status, classroom structure, teacher qualifications, and engagement in preschool activity settings. The sample included 148 children, aged three to five, from classrooms with varying proportions of first and second-language learners. The Child Observation in Preschool (COP) instrument measured engagement levels. Our findings reveal that the presence of highly qualified teachers significantly increased the duration of high engagement for all children, regardless of language status. While second language learners initially appeared to show lower engagement, this difference was insignificant in the full model after accounting for classroom structure and teacher qualifications. Classrooms with a higher proportion of qualified teachers demonstrated improved engagement across the board. Policy and Practice: These findings underscore the importance of ensuring a high proportion of qualified teachers in early childhood education and care settings. Creating a supportive, high-quality educational environment is essential for fostering engagement among all children but may be particularly crucial in classrooms with diverse language backgrounds.

Purpose The range of impairments in children with neurodisability (ND) complicates data collection, yet individualising materials and procedures could enable more children to self-report. This study introduces the Cognitive Accessibility Tracking Questionnaire (CATQ), designed to monitor changes enhancing accessibility ("adaptations") in interview-administered patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). The CATQ is used in a longitudinal study of mental health and participation in children with ND investigating adaptation use and its utility in assessing the risk of bias introduced by these adaptations.Materials and methodsThe 13-item CATQ was developed with experts in ND and augmentative and alternative communication. Predictors of PROM adaptations were analysed using linear regression; the overall change was tested with a t-test and item-specific agreement with Cohen's weighted kappa and proportion of agreement.ResultsSix interviewers conducted 69 interviews, interviewing 43 children once or twice. Common adaptations included explaining/replacing concepts (56.5% of interviews), exemplifying (60.9%), or repeating questions/instructions (50.7%). Child age, seizure history, verbal communication abilities, adaptive behaviour, and interviewer identity predicted adaptation use. Adaptation use did not differ between the two data collection points, 13 months apart.ConclusionThe CATQ enhances methodological rigor by tracking adaptations and facilitating risk-of-bias-assessment by analysing adaptation changes and factors affecting their use.

Introduction Parents with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) often need parenting support, but there are few evidence-based programmes adapted to their cognitive needs. Parenting Young Children (PYC), a home-based programme for parents with IDDs, is perceived as beneficial by parents and practitioners, but it is unclear if PYC improves parenting. The purpose of the proposed mixed-methods study is therefore to evaluate the PYC programme for improved parenting in parents with IDDs.Methods and analysis The quantitative evaluation will have a multi-centre, pretest-posttest study design and include parents with IDDs (children aged 0-9) in need of adapted parenting support. Goal-attainment in parenting skills, parental self-efficacy and child mental health will be measured outcomes. Interviews will be used to explore the perspectives of parents and children on PYC.Ethics and dissemination Particpation is based on informed consent from parents and guardians of the participating children. Ethical approval was granted by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority.

Adolescents' participation in physical exercise (PE) in sports clubs and self-organised training has decreased over time, while screen-time (ST) has increased. Boys exercise more and play more video games than girls, and adolescents without disabilities exercise more than adolescents with disabilities. This study aims to explore trends in patterns of PE and ST, and the association with gender and disability. Cross-sectional data from 3949 Swedish adolescents aged 12–14 and 15–18 years were used. Participation in sports, training, watching TV & movies, and playing video games was analysed annually for 2013–2019 by hierarchical cluster analysis with k means rotation. Clusters' centroids were compared across years. Associations with gender and disability were tested with regression analysis. In both age groups, five to six clusters were identified each year. Most adolescents are in exercising patterns. The proportions in patterns of sporting and ST increased between 2013–2015 and 15–18-year-olds in not-exercising patterns decreased continuously. Exercising and not-exercising patterns show stable trends, while ST patterns no longer have similar structures after 2016. More clusters in 2013–2016 than 2017–2019 are associated with gender. No cluster in 12–14-year-olds and four clusters in 15–18-year-olds are associated with disability. The study provides a new perspective on trends in patterns of PE and ST from 2013 to 2019 in Swedish adolescents. Results indicate an increased polarisation in activity patterns yet decreased polarisation between genders, and that adolescents with disabilities have the same activity patterns as other adolescents. Further research into other factors potentially influencing adolescents' activity patterns is needed.

To review the longitudinal trajectories – and the factors influencing their development – of mental health problems in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. Systematic review methods were employed. Searches of six databases used keywords and MeSH terms related to children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, mental health problems, and longitudinal research. After the removal of duplicates, reviewers independently screened records for inclusion, extracted data (outcomes and influencing factors), and evaluated the risk of bias. Findings were tabulated and synthesized using graphs and a narrative. Searches identified 94,662 unique records, from which 49 publications were included. The median publication year was 2015. Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were the most commonly included population in retrieved studies. In almost 50% of studies, trajectories of mental health problems changed by < 10% between the first and last time point. Despite multiple studies reporting longitudinal trajectories of mental health problems, greater conceptual clarity and consideration of the measures included in research is needed, along with the inclusion of a more diverse range of populations of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. 

This systematic review aimed to identify how children's right to health, connected to the principles of protection, promotion, and participation, and from the perspectives of children, parents, and professionals in preschool, school, and healthcare has been empirically demonstrated by international scholars between 1989 and 2021. Following the standards of PRISMA-P, two searches, in 2018 and 2020, were conducted in seven databases. In total, 561 studies were found and after the screening process, which entails reviewing titles, abstracts, and full text-versions, 49 studies were finally included. A deductive qualitative content analysis, proposed by Elo and Kyngas, was performed. According to the findings, protection was demonstrated as Being protected from harmful acts and practices and being entitled to special care and assistance. Promotion was demonstrated as Possessing of resources and Receiving of services, and participation as Being heard and listened to and Being involved in matters of concern. Conforming to the findings, although presented separately, protection, promotion, and participation could be understood as interrelated concepts. In summary, children's right to health was demonstrated within two major fields: as the use of their own resources, and trust and as aspects provided by adults as support and safety. This is the first review of studies, published 1989-2021, identifying children's right to health through the perspectives of protection, promotion, and participation. During this period, children's right to health has mainly been demonstrated in studies from a healthcare context. All researchers, policymakers, health workers, and politicians should include children in all decisions that concern them, to increase their participation. As children's health is closely linked to their physical, social, and cognitive development there is a need for more studies exploring children's right to health in preschool and school contexts in which children spend their everyday life.