The Preschool Activity Card Sort

Abstract

Measuring the participation of preschoolers (children between 3 and 6 years of age) with disabilities in everyday activites has become a professional mandate for occupational therapists. This study outlines the development of the Preschool Activity Card Sort, which can establish a child's occupational profile through parent interview. Six of the nine International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health activity and participation domains are included in the Preschool Activity Card Sort. A literature review and an analysis of parent time logs were used to compile photographs of preschoolers engaged in typical activities. Parents respond to these photographs during discussion about their child's participation in these everyday activities. When a child does not participate in age-appropriate activities, the Preschool Activity Card Sort helps determine whether it is due to child, family, or environmental barriers. Identifying these barriers assists the therapist and the family in determining therapeutic goals.

Development of the Arabic Version of the Preschool Activity Card Sort (A‐PACS)

“…The PACS has been translated into Spanish for Hispanic/Latino children living in the United States (Stoffel & Berg ) and an attempt to translate it into the Chinese language has begun. Evidence of content validity has been shown by the original authors (Berg & LaVesser ) and construct validity has been established when comparing participation by Spanish‐ and English‐speaking children (Stoffel & Berg ). Using their Spanish‐translated PACS, authors found that participation was different between Spanish‐speaking children of recent immigrants and English‐speaking pre‐schoolers of Hispanic/Latino origin who were born in the United States.…”

“…The Preschool Activity Card Sort (PACS) is a semi‐structured interview that measures participation in preschool children (3–6 years of age; Berg & LaVesser ). The PACS develops an occupational profile for each child by offering the parent or caregiver photographs of children participating in everyday activities depicting 85 typical activities that are organized into seven domains: self‐care, community mobility, high physical demand leisure and low physical demand leisure, social interaction, domestic and education.…”

“…fear, feels child is too young); or (vi) no, for environmental reasons (e.g. community resources unavailable; Berg & LaVesser ). Caregivers are also asked to identify up to five activities on which the occupational therapist could focus for intervention purposes.…”

The Development of Adolescent and Young Adult Participation Sort – Taiwanese Version

“…On the basis of the Activity Card Sort and currently under development is the Adolescent and Young Adult Participation Sort (AYAPS), a tool that is designed for youths age 18–25 years transitioning from childhood to adulthood. AYAPS uses a card sort methodology of sorting photographs of young adults doing activities to obtain information about one's participation (Baum and Edwards, ; Berg and LaVesser, ; Corr, ). AYAPS is composed of 70 items belonging to seven domains: obligatory chores, leisure activities, social activities, education, work, health, fitness and wellness, and parenting.…”

“…To obtain the information about one's participation, the AYAPS applied a card sort methodology (Baum and Edwards, ; Berg and LaVesser, ; Corr, ). The respondents are asked to sort the photographs into one of the categories pre‐determined by the researcher (Kerlinger, ).…”