Caregivers', teachers', and assistants' use and learning of partner strategies in communication using high-tech speech-generating devices with children with severe cerebral palsy.

Communication with speech generating devices (SGDs) with children with severe physical, communicative and cognitive impairments, such as children with cerebral palsy (CP), can be difficult. Use of partner strategies facilitates the communication and instructional approaches such as feedback and role play facilitate communication partners' learning in how to use partner strategies. To describe communication partners' use and learning about partner strategies in SGD-mediated communication with children with severe CP.

Speech and language pathologists' perceptions and practises of communication partner training to support children's communication with high-tech speech generating devices.

This study examined speech and language pathologists' (SLPs') perceptions and practices of communication partner training with high-tech speech generating devices (SGDs). Fifteen SLPs were recruited throughout Sweden. The SLPs answered a study-specific questionnaire on communication partner training in relation to communication partners to children with severe cerebral palsy and intellectual disability.

Implementation of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and the ICF Children and Youth Version (ICF-CY) within the context of augmentative and alternative communication.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the implementation of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), and the ICF version for Children and Youth (ICF-CY), within the context of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). First, the use of the ICF and the ICF-CY in AAC research is analyzed. Second, examples of training and implementation of ICF from other contexts besides AAC are provided.

Differentiating activity and participation of children and youth with disability in Sweden: a third qualifier in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health for Children and Youth?

Objective: This article discusses the use of a third qualifier, subjective experience of involvement, as a supplement to the qualifiers of capacity and performance, to anchor activity and participation as separate endpoints on a continuum of actions.

Design: Empirical data from correlational studies were used for secondary analyses. The analyses were focused on the conceptual roots of the participation construct as indicated by the focus of policy documents, the support for a third qualifier as indicated by correlational data, differences between self-ratings and ratings by others in measuring subjective experience of involvement, and the empirical support for a split between activity and participation in different domains of the activity and participation component.

Professionals' views of children's everyday life situations and the relation to participation.

Purpose: The aim was to determine professionals' views of everyday life situations (ELS) of importance for children and to explore how ELS correlate with the construct "Participation". This study was part of a larger work to develop a structured tool with code sets to identify child participation and support children with disabilities to describe what matters most for them in intervention planning.

Method: The study had a concurrent mixed methods design.

Using content analysis to link texts on assessment and intervention to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health - version for Children and Youth (ICF-CY).

Objective: To explore how content analysis can be used together with linking rules to link texts on assessment and intervention to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health - version for children and youth (ICF-CY).

Methods: Individual habilitation plans containing texts on assessment and intervention for children with disabilities and their families were linked to the ICF-CY using content ana-lysis. Texts were first divided into meaning units in order to extract meaningful concepts.

Identifying child functioning from an ICF-CY perspective: everyday life situations explored in measures of participation.

Purpose: This study was part of a larger work to develop an authentic measure consisting of code sets for self- or proxy-report of child participation. The aim was to identify common everyday life situations of children and youth based on measures of participation.

Method: The study was descriptive in nature and involved several stages: systematic search of literature to find articles presenting measures for children and youth with disabilities, identifying measures in selected articles, linking items in included measures to the ICF-CY, analysing content in measures presented as performance and participation and identifying aggregations of ICF-CY codes across these measures.

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health and the version for children and youth as a tool in child habilitation/early childhood intervention--feasibility and usefulness as a common language and frame of reference for practice.

Early childhood intervention and habilitation services for children with disabilities operate on an interdisciplinary basis. It requires a common language between professionals, and a shared framework for intervention goals and intervention implementation. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and the version for children and youth (ICF-CY) may serve as this common framework and language.

Exploring changes over time in habilitation professionals' perceptions and applications of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, version for Children and Youth (ICF-CY).

Objective: This study explored how professionals in inter-disciplinary teams perceived the implementation of the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, version for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) in Swedish habilitation services.

Design: Descriptive longitudinal mixed-methods design.

Methods: Following participation in a 2-day in-service training on the ICF-CY, 113 professionals from 14 interdisciplinary teams described their perceptions of the implementation of the ICF-CY at 3 consecutive time-points: during in-service training, after 1 year, and after 2.

Evaluation of in-service training in using the ICF and ICF version for children and youth.

Objective: To study the effects of in-service training on staff's self-reported knowledge, understanding use of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and ICF Children and Youth version (ICF-CY).

Design: Quasi-experimental with a questionnaire prior to training and another one year after training.

Methods: Intervention was in-service training in using the ICF and ICF-CY.

The utility of ICF for describing interaction in non-speaking children with disabilities--caregiver ratings and perceptions.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explore the utility of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) when assessing caregivers' perceptions of interaction and factors related to interaction in non-speaking children with disability.

Method: A questionnaire with focus on interaction and related factors was constructed by linking questions in existing instruments to ICF and was completed by 208 professionals and parents of 195 non-speaking children with disabilities in Russia. Caregivers' descriptions of interaction in open-ended questions were qualitatively analysed and compared to selected caregivers' ratings of children's functioning and environment in the questionnaire based on ICF.