Social inclusion following childhood acquired brain injury (ABI) has never before been researched. Related concepts, such as friendship and participation, have received attention during the last decade. However, these studies have mainly been small-scale quantitative efforts, relying on caregiver report and neglecting children's perspectives. This research aimed to explore the social inclusion of children with ABI from multiple perspectives and employing multiple methods. A second aim of the study was to ascertain if two current psychometric measures of social functioning could be utilised to capture the children's experiences of social inclusion. A purposive sample of nine children with ABI, mothers (n=9), teachers (n=9) and peers (n=100) were recruited through a charity in Northern Ireland. The children and their mothers participated in semi-structured interviews, which were analysed using Interpretative PhenomenologicaI Analysis. Analysis of the children's interviews generated five super-ordinate and nine subordinate themes, and focused on their experiences of social inclusion, rejection and conflict, and the personal impact of ABI on the self-concept and on coping. The analysis of the mothers' data yielded four super-ordinate and twelve subordinate themes, which described the impact of ABI on the family, the changes to the child, protection after ABI, and the child's return to social life. In addition to the interviews, children, mothers and teachers completed two psychometric measures of social functioning, the Child Behaviour Checklist and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. The children's peers participated in a sociometric task, which aimed to act as a measure of their popularity among their classmates. A comparison of the findings of the psychometrics and the sociometric with the interview data revealed that the measures of social functioning do not adequately assess social inclusion in children following ABI. Subsequently, recommendations about the formulation of a new measure of social inclusion for children with ABI are made.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:579579 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Boylan, Anne-Marie |
| Publisher | Queen's University Belfast |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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