Alecia Samuels
Post Doctoral Research Fellow
CHILD, Jönköping University (Sweden)
Chair: Joana Cadima, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of Porto
University, Portugal

Children with long term health conditions or impairments change with time just like all other children. These changes occur both in terms of development, as traditionally measured with developmental tests, but also in terms of everyday functioning, as measured with instruments focusing on everyday functioning and participation. In addition children’s natural contexts change with time at a faster pace than adults. The fast and sometimes different patterns of change in children with long term health conditions or impairments make it necessary to assess change over time especially since most of the current theories that we have about participation is based on cross sectional studies. Cross-sectional designs do not allow the researcher to observe time related changes which makes it difficult to test change-related hypotheses. This presentation is therefore based on a systematic review of how change is conceptualized and measured in longitudinal studies of everyday functioning in children with long term health conditions or impairments.