Exploring Participative Environments of Children with Learning and Physical Disabilities: Perspectives from Parents and Practitioners

Abstract

It is unclear how parents and professionals working together can create environments that enhance the functioning and participation of children with disabilities. This study investigates parents’ and practitioners’ conceptions of the environmental factors and collaboration that support the participation of children with learning and physical disabilities. The data were collected from children’s parents, therapists, and teachers (N = 10) through focus group discussions. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis based on an inductive approach. Various physical, psychological, and social barriers, along with a lack of collaboration in the child’s environment, were found to prevent the child’s full participation. Linking children’s therapy to everyday activities and learning was found to be the best way to improve children’s functioning and participation in all the environments studied. Adult collaboration based on a child-oriented approach was perceived as essential for enhancing the children’s functioning and participation and for fostering inclusion in school and everyday life.

1. Introduction

Environmental factors play a crucial role in children’s participation at home, in school, and in their communities [1]. Based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF), environmental factors are classified as the physical, social, and attitudinal features surrounding the child with disabilities [2]. The ICF provides a comprehensive understanding of functioning, which is particularly valuable in terms of children’s disabilities and rehabilitation [3,4,5]. Children with physical and/or learning disabilities are very much studied; however, much less is known about the collaboration of the main important persons around the child with physical disabilities, namely their parents, therapists, and teachers, and how they try to create a participative environment alongside one another at home, in therapy, in school, and in society. Physical disability can be described as limitations in performing activities with a certain level of quality and efficiency, as well as restrictions in participating in family and social life. These disabilities may stem from differences in body structures and functions, as well as from environments that hinder activity and learning [6]. Learning disability (LD) refers to different learning challenges like difficulties in reading, writing, listening, speaking, reasoning, and mathematics [7]. In this study, we search for answers on how both parents and practitioners can create a supportive and participative environment for children with physical and learning disabilities and how the adults’ collaborations can further improve outcomes for the children.

1.1. Participation in Children with Disabilities

The World Health Organization (WHO) [8] defines participation as involvement in life situations, and it has been recognized as a constitutional right for every child [9]. Participation encompasses the dynamic interaction of influencing factors (characteristics of the child, family, and environment) and dimensions of participation (physical, social, and voluntary commitment) [10]. Participation at home, in school, and in the community has a positive effect on children’s development and gives them an opportunity to develop skills that support their transition to adulthood [11]. Participation is also recognized as an important outcome of rehabilitation interventions [12].

Optimal participation involves the dynamic interaction of the above-mentioned determinants and dimensions [13]. Given that the purpose of the rehabilitation of children with disabilities is participation in society, such children’s environment must be understood and described in relation to the participation domains relevant to them [14]. Studies have shown that children with disabilities encounter challenges in participation, especially due to environmental barriers [15,16]. The most common barriers are attitudes, the physical environment, and a lack of support from staff and service providers [17]. Consequently, support is needed in the home, school, therapy, and leisure environments [3]. Knowledge of environmental barriers can support the development of methods that enable participation [18].

1.2. Factors Impacting the Functioning and Participation of Children with Disabilities in Different Environments

Important environments for the participation of a child with a disability include the home, school, and leisure activity settings. At home, a family is considered a unit that actively shapes its own life, which is strongly determined by its values, thoughts, and beliefs. Thus, the culture of a family affects the child who is part of it [19]. While children frequently participate in activities at home, those with disabilities tend to participate in less complex activities. This highlights the importance of home-based interventions for optimizing children’s participation in their home environment [20]. Parents play a vital role as enablers of participation, and the necessary environmental and human resources for parents to encourage the children’s focus is particularly important [21]. Involving professionals in family-oriented collaboration is recommended to support rehabilitation, based on the understanding that support for a child cannot be planned without considering the everyday life of the whole family [22]. Therefore, the family and other adults’ involvement and roles in a child’s life are vital to the participation of children [23]. The cultures around us reflect the adults’ values and motives [24]. Similarly, the attitudes affect the activity and quality of life [25]. Edwards et al. (2009) showed that a lack of support and the attitudes of parents, peers, and other persons were seen as obstacles to the joint action enabling inclusion [26]. Other studies have also shown that these factors limit participation [27,28].

Further studies have indicated that participation in leisure activities and community services (e.g., sports clubs) promoted development and improved the quality of life and health of individuals [13]. Despite this knowledge, the environments of children and youths with disabilities are often limited compared to those of typically developing peers in terms of supporting leisure activities. Children with disabilities hope to enjoy the same activities as children without disabilities, and participation in such activities provides them with enjoyment and opportunities for peer relations and social participation, which are crucial to becoming full members of society [29].

Meuser et al.’s study (2022) highlighted the primary role of schools in providing an inclusive social, psychological, and physical environment to support children’s participation [1]. Collaboration among teachers, other experts, and children with disabilities may foster the children’s participation in school activities. However, little is known about the existing school-based interventions aimed at enabling school participation and changing or enabling the school environment for all children. Unfortunately, many educational support programmers still focus exclusively on training individual children [1]. Maciver et al. (2019) argued that individual and environmental interventions should be developed to promote participation outcomes in schools [30]. The modification of the school environment to meet children’s needs requires collaboration between teachers and other relevant experts. Given the limited understanding of the processes that enable participation in school, there is a need to develop interventions specifically for the school context [1].

1.3. Collaboration Between Family and Professionals Improving Participation in Daily Environments of Children with Disabilities

Family–professional collaboration is a crucial aspect of family-centered services, recognized as best practice. This collaboration is defined by mutual respect and trust, the sharing of information, open communication, joint decision-making, and the integration of family beliefs, needs, and preferences into interventions [31]. The use of the ICF in rehabilitation is associated with improved collaboration within the care team and between the team and caregivers, as well as with better communication between the aforementioned parties and the other services involved in a child’s life in school and social services [5]. Thus, a child’s rehabilitation is an interactive process involving collaboration among the child, the adults, and the environment, which in turn promotes participation [32,33]. Therapists who understand how a child’s environment affects his or her participation in therapy can improve the participation of the child and his or her family in the community. In clinical practice, a family- and solution-centered approach is crucial, where families are involved as partners in therapy. In this way, therapists can gain an understanding of how the relationship between people and their environment creates obstacles to participating in therapy. Therapists can also involve families in the development of solutions to children’s problems [11].

Creating a supportive and participative environment for school-aged children with disabilities requires a combined focus on home, school, and rehabilitation [33], as well as the provision of participation-based and family-centered services [34]. In family-centered rehabilitation, the parents’ expertise in their own children is emphasized and recognized. This approach has been linked to improved access and health for children with special needs. Therefore, a child-centered approach is recommended to identify and develop individual solutions for children’s rehabilitation. Van der Kemp et al. (2021) pointed out that practitioners should focus on assessments and interventions targeting the local environment to promote health through participation [35]. To increase their practical impact, more research is needed on the environmental factors that can support the development of more meaningful services that support participation [34]. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to identify the environmental factors that affect the participation of children with learning and physical disabilities and understand how adult collaboration impacts children’s development. These factors were identified through a collaboration among parents, therapists, and teachers in focus group discussions. The following research questions guided this research:

• RQ1: What are the supportive and participative environmental factors in the everyday life of children with learning and physical disabilities?
• RQ2: What kind of impact on adult collaboration improves a child’s functional capacity and participation in the daily environments of children with learning and physical disabilities?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Participants and Procedure

Ten adults (parents, teachers, and therapists) from the Northern Savo area in Finland were recruited for the study. The criterion for participating in the study was to be a teacher, therapist, or parent of a school-aged child with learning and physical disabilities who was receiving intensive rehabilitation. Rehabilitation here refers to either physiotherapy or occupational therapy. The families were reached through rehabilitation counselors at the hospital, who received information about the study from the researchers, both verbally and in print. The parents who were interested contacted the researchers. The researchers then sent an information sheet and consent form to the parents by post. The parents passed on the information to their children’s teachers and therapists, who voluntarily contacted the researchers. The researchers also mailed them an information sheet and a consent form.

Four families contacted the researchers and expressed their willingness to participate in the study (five parents of four children). However, one parent withdrew their consent at the beginning of data collection. After giving their informed consent, they passed the information to the teachers and therapists. Three therapists and two teachers contacted the researchers and gave their informed consent. In total, ten participants gave their informed consent to participate in the study (five parents, three therapists, and two teachers). The operating environments of the therapists were hospitals, homes, schools, and/or therapy facilities. The parents had three children who were in primary school (ranging in age from 8 to 12) and had both learning (dyslexia) and physical disabilities (cerebral palsy, GMFCS levels II to III).

The data collection involved semi-structured interviews, starting with open-ended questions, as well as group interviews, in which the theme was decided in advance. These themes were, for example, the factors affecting the participation of children with disabilities, as well as the collaboration between adults in promoting participation. The first author (A.K.) interviewed the participants in a neutral and safe environment, which was not the workplace or home of the participants. Group interviews enabled the construction and expansion of common knowledge. The group interviews were divided into a practitioner group and a parental group, but there was also a mixed group of parents, teachers, and therapists. The interviews lasted 20–60 min each. All the interviews were recorded. By reviewing the recordings, the researchers were able to recall the interviews. The material consisted of 10 h and 27 min of recorded data and 160 pages of transcribed text (Times New Roman, font size 12, line spacing 1). All the data were considered for the analysis.

2.2. Data Analysis

A qualitative content analysis was performed by an inductive approach [35] and followed by a model proposed by Kuckartz and Rädiker (2023) [36]. Content analysis can be used to identify similarities and differences in the study material and is also a practical method for developing knowledge and understanding regarding people’s experiences. Qualitative methods, such as content analysis, have been deemed a suitable approach for use in rehabilitation studies [37].

The interviews were first transcribed, after which the text was read several times by the first author (A.K.). The information and meanings related to the phenomenon under study were coded and then combined. This was performed by looking for units of meaning (entities of thought) that answered the questions guiding the data analysis: How do the participants describe the environments that affect the participation of children with disabilities? How does adult collaboration promote participation in different environments?

In the initial analysis, meanings or sentences containing information relevant to the study topic were identified and extracted together with the surrounding text to preserve the content. Meaning units were abstracted and coded accordingly. The first author (A.K.) then searched for differences and similarities across the material before grouping the codes into subcategories and categories. Examples of the formation of categories are shown in

Table 1. Example of the formation of categories.

Example of an Original Phrase	Meaning Unit	Subcategory	Main Category
“I’ve always spoken in favor of the fact that therapy should take place in normal life. I think it’s so wonderful when they’ve been at home and seen how it works in normal life and then hinted that if you did that, it’s so much for everyday things” (Therapist 2)	Therapy as part of a child’s normal life at home	Therapy in the home environment to enhance the child’s functioning and participation	Environmental factors enhancing the functioning and participation of a child with disabilities

. The data content consisted of eight subcategories and two main categories (“environmental factors enhancing functioning and participation of a child with disabilities” and “adult’s actions in collaboration to promote functioning and participation”). The content of the categories was abstracted into a theme reflecting the latent content’s underlying meaning. The analysis was discussed among the researchers. Quotes from the parents, therapists, and teachers were used to describe the data in the classes.

2.3. Ethical Aspects of the Study

The ethical principles of good research were followed in this study. Informed consent was collected from all the participants (Research Ethics Advisory Board, 2019), and all the participants received instructions orally and in writing. They were advised that their participation in the study could be suspended at any time, and additional information was available to them. All interviews and discussions with the participants were treated anonymously and confidentially. Research data were used only in this study, along with the related articles, in accordance with the guidelines of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (2019). According to the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Eastern Finland, no preliminary review statement was required from the Human Sciences Ethics Committee because the research did not affect the physical integrity of the research subjects. The participants were older children under 15 years of age. They gave their consent to the researcher to participate in the study. The study did not pose an immediate danger or threat to the safety of the participants, nor were there any mental health risks other than those inherent in the participant’s daily life. Finally, only personal data were collected, and these were not combined with data from other sources.

This study focused on faithfully representing the perspectives, meanings, and interpretations of the participants and aimed to produce credible research that contributed to the understanding of a complex phenomenon. The research process has been described as accurately and comprehensibly as possible, contributing to the reliability and validity of the research.

3. Results

Through content analysis, two main and eight subcategories were investigated. All the categories are shown in

Table 2. Main and subcategories.

Main Categories	Subcategories
Environmental Factors Impacting the Functioning and Participation of Children with Disabilities	Social factor
	Physical factor
	Psychological factor
	Society factor
Adult Collaboration to Promote Functioning and Participation	Prerequisites of collaboration
	Forms of collaboration
	Attitudes and atmosphere
	Barrier of collaboration

.

3.1. Environmental Factors at Home, School, and Therapy Impacting the Functioning and Participation of Children with Disabilities

The participants indicated that recognition of a child’s everyday life environment is essential for promoting the child’s functioning and participation. Each environment described in this research has its own meaning in terms of children’s participation. In this study, home, school, therapy, and free time were described by the participants as the operating environments of participation. These environments were categorized into three factors, namely social, physical, and psychological, that affect children’s participation and can be seen in a child’s everyday environment. These factors are connected to each other. For example, if the physical environment limits the child’s activity and ability to function, it may affect negatively the child’s psychological factors as well, such as the child’s self-esteem and sense of coherence. The social factor is related to society as an interactive feature between adults and children. Society is described as an operating environment for participation. The family is a part of society and thus is the child; “Not only does the child belong to the family, but he is also a member of society”. (Parent 3).

Activities with the child are often intended to support their growth into members of society. In old buildings, the physical environment can be an impacting or promoting factor, as described in the following quote: “A child’s ability to participate in normal everyday activities can be significantly reduced due to physical barriers”. (Therapist 1). The results also highlighted the children’s basic needs and their connection to the physical environment. The data revealed some environmental barriers in rural areas, such as thresholds that make it difficult for a child to navigate in a wheelchair. The environment can also be more conducive to children. Environmental solutions that support children’s abilities, such as barrier-free school facilities, can be a decisive factor in children’s participation. For example, the equipment solutions used in physical education classes for children in wheelchairs require an adult to know and understand special needs and possibilities.

According to the participants, the psychological environment is also an important factor that promotes a safe environment for fostering psychological growth. It is vital to recognize that a child’s strengths are connected to his or her self-esteem and its development. Indeed, the research material highlighted successful experiences connected to the development of children’s self-esteem and how they participate in different situations. Thus, adults should recognize children’s strengths and support them by influencing the operating environment and enabling these children to experience success.

Home is the heart of children’s daily environment, and it has an important meaning in terms of their participation. The home is where the child’s family and the family’s operating culture and customs are located. At home, the child can be seen in his or her natural environment as part of a family. Parents are the best experts on their own children and have the most knowledge about the daily lives of their children and their family. Moreover, parents likely have the best understanding of their children’s needs and ways of working. Further, the family and close community influence a child’s home environment. In the home, children learn everyday skills and participate in their family’s everyday life as a member of the family, abiding by the same rules and customs as other family members. When all the professionals involved recognize the child’s home as an operating environment, it gives them a good understanding of the child’s everyday activities and thus allows them to support the child’s agency. At home, the child is surrounded by the family’s customs, culture, and attitudes, which affect the child’s activities in other environments as well.

The environment can sometimes make it difficult to hear or see the views of the parents and the child. We once had a meeting at home, which was easier for the child, not so scary. At home, you can see how the child really lives and functions.

(Parent 3)

However, there can also be impacting factors in the home environment. Parents’ coping skills and attitudes can significantly affect a child’s environment. In addition, parents’ worries can affect the realization of their children’s participation. Further, the relationship between parents and grandparents can sometimes limit children’s participation in the home environment. Grandparents may have difficulties understanding the parents’ unique ways of constructing the daily activities of the family, which may be very different from what the other party is accustomed to. Usually, parents are willing to share information with professionals, but parents’ negative actions or experiences of collaboration can affect their preconceptions and assumptions about professionals, which can be a limiting factor. Moreover, the actions of professionals clearly impact how children and their families react in interactional situations.

Understanding the difference is important. The teacher must understand what the child is capable of and provide support as needed.

(Teacher 1)

According to the participants, the therapy of a child with disabilities can take place in varying operating environments. However, it is an important part of a child’s everyday life; it forms links among their home, school, care, and leisure activities. Therapy is continuous, depending on the child’s needs, and may occur at home or school. The participants noted that it should take place in the child’s authentic activity environment, not in a separate, closed space. The parents felt that the best environment was a place that was meaningful to the child, where support for different kinds of activities could be obtained. Those who work with the child at school should participate in the therapy, or the therapist should sometimes visit the classroom. The therapist can also support the creation of friendships. For example, the therapist can ask another child to join a therapy session to play with the child in therapy.

Therapy is often part of the child’s everyday life, but for us, for example, it mostly happens at school, during the school holidays at home, but maybe it can be part of the child’s everyday life.

(Parent 3)

The participants viewed school as an important operating environment for children who require special support or special education. The school is also a meeting place that enables friendships.

In social relations in school, you can increase participation among students by connecting them through objects of interest. If you know one student and he play a mobile game and then he knows another student who plays the same game, or in a way works like that as an icebreaker, in that you start discussing that. That brings them together.

(Teacher 2)

The school’s most important task is to enable learning for divergent learners. In this regard, the teachers’ skills in dealing with different kinds of disabilities emerge as a significant factor. Schools have very different operating environments, such as a/an “normal class”, “joint class”, or “integrated class”. School sizes were also mentioned by the participants, with descriptions like “small village school” or “large city school”. As mentioned, school is a meeting place that facilitates friendships, making it an important social environment for children.

However, learning is the main thing and purpose at school. Children have different ways of learning. One learns by hearing, another by seeing, and the third by doing. We are still too stuck in the fact that when you have a wheelchair, you need special help, and we are afraid of it.

(Parent 2)

A leisure environment refers to environments in which the child spends time with other children. It is not always easy to develop friendships, but shared hobbies can make it easier. The parents viewed the leisure environment as a harsh one from the point of view of their children’s social development. If a child does not have contact with peers during leisure time, social development is not supported. However, the other children’s attitudes can also be negative, harming a child’s self-esteem and willingness to be with other children.

3.2. Adult Collaboration to Promote Functioning and Participation

In the second research question, we wanted to find out how adults collaboration improves children’s functional capacity and participation in different environments. The attitudes of the adults appeared to have a significant impact on the realization of collaboration, as their actions were guided by their own attitudes, thoughts, and values. The adults realized that they must become aware of these attitudes because they affect their collaboration. Based on the results, the adults’ assumptions affect their children’s opportunities to act and participate equally. In the interviews, the participants said that the adults’ actions were often regulated by their own values and thoughts, which have a significant impact on the children’s opportunities for participation.

The participants emphasized child-oriented forms of collaboration and the need for child-oriented, open, and active collaboration between the adults and the services they render to increase participation in the child’s daily environment. When examining operating environments, all dimensions (social, physical, and psychological) must be considered, including the cultural environment, societal services, structures, and opportunities where disabled children live and the adults around them work.

The child is at the center of the collaboration that strengthens their participation in different environments. This idea is captured well in the following quotation: “The child is at the center of everything, that’s what we are all for. Everyone works for the child from their own perspective”. (Parent 3) The child’s own activity as part of the adult collaboration process is essential. All the participants highlighted the importance of having a shared understanding of what participation means in the activities and how children’s participation is constructed in different environments. This shared understanding will also increase the opportunities for the child to be equal to other children. Through this child-orientated approach, the child’s activities can be structured such that participation is possible, and the child’s own agency can be recognized and supported. Children’s agency can be understood as their position, skill, and will. Children under school age need to make choices and independent decisions with support and help from adults. A child’s agency is realized not only through the meanings that children give to activities in their minds but also when they act together with adults and peers. In this way, agency is linked to participation.

If the environment understands what the child wants and is allowed to say it, that should be the starting point for everything.

(Therapist 2)

The prerequisite for joint action is that the actors identify, recognize, and set the goal of the action, which in this case is the participation of children in their operating environments. It is important to clarify the division of labor and roles among adults and foster cooperation, where everyone has their own place in the collaboration. Collaboration must be open and functional. Information sharing is essential for goal-oriented collaboration to progress favorably. Obstacles to participation should be identified in a timely manner so that they can be overcome. The participants described physical barriers, attitudes, and resources as examples of such obstacles.

Actors should know how to read a child and map the child’s interests. In collaboration, this information should be shared to build the child’s social network.

(Teacher 1)

In this study, the parents’ fears, overprotection, or financial stressors were listed as factors affecting the possibility of participation. Societal bureaucracy and poor service availability were also seen as weakening the opportunities for participation. In the case of children with disabilities, the stigma caused by the disability can isolate non-disabled and disabled children from each other. Thus, knowledge of these environmental factors is crucial to fostering children’s participation. One therapist recommended that children and their parents should purchase a computer to practice academic and social skills, as seen in the following quote:

With the collaboration, there is an opportunity to get different support for the child, such as iPads and computers. However, it requires joint inventing and a desire to try new things.

(Therapist 2)

In this study, open and functional collaboration emerged as one of the most important factors facilitating children’s participation. Shared common goals and values facilitate collaboration, which in turn requires joint commitment and open discussions, where everyone is ready to listen to the opinions of others, including those of the child and other actors around the child.

4. Discussion

The main results showed that recognition of a child’s everyday life environment by parents and professionals is essential for promoting the child’s functioning and participation. In this study, we showed how parents and practitioners working together could affect different environments to enhance the participation of children with learning and physical disabilities. Thus, various physical barriers, fears, attitudes, and the lack of resources in all environments had inhibiting effects on children’s participation in this study. These inhibiting and enhancing physical, social, and attitudinal factors at home, in school, and within therapy environments, together with the possibilities of collaboration between all surrounding actors, are discussed in this section.

Our study showed that environmental factors are essential to notice when enhancing participation, which is in line with the results of Kang et al. (2017) [18] and Cahill and Dadvand (2018) [38]. Environmental factors and adult collaboration have been shown to be crucial factors in constructing and enabling participation, in the ability to function, and in the agency of children with disabilities [39,40]. All the participants viewed the home environment as the basis of children’s agency and possibilities. Children spend much of their time at home with family and friends, and thus it is a place with many opportunities to enhance children’s participation through various activities [41]. According to Law et al. (2007), the participation of children with disabilities is lower in complex home-based interventions, and the exchange of information between parents and professionals at home is important to increase their participation opportunities [16]. In this study, parents reported that their children participated in fewer activities in their school environment than the other children. They identified several factors limiting participation and learning in school, including the physical and social environment and limited resources and support from school staff. For example, stairs and other structures could prevent children with disabilities from participating. Social barriers were also highlighted, such as the attitudes of adults preventing children’s involvement in daily activities. Moreover, it was not always easy to create a social operating environment in which children were encouraged to act, thereby increasing their self-confidence and supporting the development of peer relationships. However, in a positive social environment, children with disabilities could reflect on themselves with other children and adults. This would help children to view themselves as community members, which is crucial to ensure their full participation in society [32]. In previous studies, the various requirements of activities (physical, cognitive, and social) and the sensory properties of the environment were also identified as impacting factors [23,42].

Therapy occurs in various environments in the daily lives of children with disabilities, as seen in this study. Family- and child-centered approaches to therapy enable individual assessment and the finding of solutions that enable children’s participation. A child-oriented approach has also been highlighted in other studies, with a focus on working from the child’s world and recognizing his or her wishes and individual needs [43]. This is linked to the concept of agency, where children are seen as active actors expressing their own views, influencing others, the environment, and their own lives [44]. Campbell et al. (2016) found that not all teachers are ready to have a therapist in their classrooms, and not all therapists are ready to go into classrooms [45]. The collaborative model requires actors to adopt a new operating culture. Activities that cross cultural boundaries challenge the work of professionals. For example, the results of this study show that collaboration between a therapist and a teacher in the classroom requires both to have the courage to change their traditional ways of working. Research on teachers’ working cultures has shown that collegial support is important for the participation of school-aged children [46].

Together, therapists, children, and parents can find ways to remove barriers to children’s participation in everyday settings [22]. It is important to link rehabilitation and therapy to naturally varying situations in everyday life, such as everyday activities and learning at home and in school. Rehabilitation is part of children’s everyday living environment, in which their families play a central role [12]. This operating culture could also be strengthened through a multiprofessional dialogical partnership, which is the starting point of activities in multifunctional collaboration, bringing disciplines and paradigms closer together and thus enhancing the outcome of the collaboration. Such collaboration, based on the principle of partnership, requires a positive atmosphere in which all parties can find their own position and role. Moreover, service providers and researchers play a key role in promoting the participation of disabled children and their families by developing healthcare services and systems to better meet the needs of families. This also has an impact on the health and well-being of families [39].

Effective collaboration is also goal oriented, which means that it is necessary for those involved to develop a common understanding of the activity and what they are performing. Open and functional collaboration requires a common language, trust, and jointly agreed-upon methods of operation. This common language supports effective collaboration to achieve a common goal [35]. According to the results of this study, jointly agreed-upon operating methods create a foundation for a working method that strengthens children’s participation. The collaboration of adults in children’s daily environments seems to play an essential role in supporting the growth of children with disabilities into full members of society and participatory adults. Moreover, the results suggest that all involved adults should have a shared understanding of what participation means in relation to the activities of children and adults in different environments. Such understanding allows adults to identify the common starting points for their activities and commit to enhancing their children’s participation in all activities. Ultimately, effective collaboration increases the opportunities for children with disabilities to participate equally with other children. The results of this study are in line with a study by Xia et al. (2023), which emphasizes that the participation of children with disabilities urgently needs to be enhanced in the future, and more attention should be paid to the environmental factors influencing the functioning and participation of such children [47].

Limitations and Future Directions

The results should be viewed while considering the limitations of the study. The most important limitation is the size of the sample as it limits the generalization of the results of this study. However, for the purposes of this study, the sample comprised the core individuals close to children with learning and physical disabilities in Finland and in many other countries. Another limitation is that the children’s own perspectives were not included in this study. In the future, we will continue our research including larger samples with different disability groups to provide more comprehensive information for authorities. Moreover, collecting similar data from another country would shed more light on the environmental factors affecting the participation of children with disabilities. Research on the phenomenon has been continued by expanding the target group, e.g., to young people and people with intellectual disabilities. These studies are still ongoing.

5. Conclusions

Environmental factors play a special role in the realization of a child’s participation and involvement in his/her own life. Various environmental barriers at home, in school, and during therapy can make it difficult for the child to become involved. It is important to identify all the environments where a child with disabilities is in need of special support. Through this, it is possible to link therapy and learning to daily activities. Child-centered collaboration between adults is essential to enhance children’s functional capacity and participation and to promote inclusion at school and in everyday life.