Functional limitations and key indicators of well-being in children with disability

Objectives: To compare measures of well-being in children with and without different types and severity of limitations. Design: Nationally representative data for American children aged 5 to 17 y ears were drawn from the 1994 and 1995 National Health Interview Surveys on Disability (NHIS-D) (N=41 300) and the Year 2000 Health Supplement to the 1994 NHIS-D (N=9530). Family resources, safety, health status, and health a ccess were measures of environment. The presence and severity of limitation s were measured in the domains of mobility, self-care, communication, and l earning. Results: Children with functional limitations were more likely to live in f amilies with limited resources and have greater exposure to secondhand smok e, less access to health care, and lower health status. Children with a lim itation were not less likely to have a regular source of medical care, but they more often were delayed or prevented from getting necessary health car e due to cost or insurance. Conclusions: Standard measures of child well-being were appropriate for chi ldren with functional limitations and showed their unfavorable situations. Children with functional limitations more often have unfavorable family res ources, less healthy home environments, poorer health status, and less heal th service access than other children, making them more susceptible to deve lopmental difficulties beyond those difficulties associated with the challe nges of their specific functional limitations.