Children with disabilities and their parents need opportunities to express opinions and take part of professional knowledge during habilitation processes. However, there is no structured model to identify and assess child participation in everyday life situations (EDLS). ICF-CY based code sets focusing on participation would support  dialogues about what matters most for individual children, causes of failures,  and needs of interventions. This study constituted a trial identifying content in code sets for Sleeping, Mealtimes, and Play.

EDLS specific for children and youth was initially identified by integration of data from measures of participation, professional opinions, and parents’ perspectives. Linkage to the ICF-CY, using existing and additional linking rules, provided comparable data, resulting in two sets of ten EDLS. These were related to the Activities and Participation component, chapters 3-9, and adapted for younger and older children.

ICF-CY categories relevant for children aged 0-6 years to be included in code sets for three of the EDLS were identified by a sequential Delphi process in 3 rounds. Participants were 5 interdisciplinary habilitation teams, altogether 35 professionals, and 7 parents of 13 typical developed preschool children from 6 families. There were no significant correlation between professionals and parents. Their partly different ICF-CY categories suggested high professional focus on Environmental factors compared with  high parental focus on Body functions. Integration of data revealed 12 categories appropriate for Sleeping, 21 for Mealtimes, and 30 for Play. This highlights the importance to integrate opinions and adapt content in code sets to individual EDLS.