Sociodemographic effects on activities preference of typically developing Israeli children and youths.

OBJECTIVE To describe activity preferences of typically developing Israeli Jewish children; examine the effect of age, gender, and sociodemographic variables on these preferences; and add information about the construct validity and reliability of the Preference Assessment of Children (PAC; King et al., 2004). METHOD A total of 310 typically developing Jewish Israeli children and youths ages 5-16 years completed the PAC. RESULTS Differences in activity preferences were found between genders. Younger children preferred to participate in more PAC scales than did older children. Additional sociodemographic variables were correlated with specific activity preferences. CONCLUSIONS Sociodemographic variables may affect children's activity preferences. However, the specific characteristics of the Israeli setting had additional effects on the results. Elaborating on knowledge about people's preferred activities and about the factors that affect those preferences may assist in occupational therapy evaluation and intervention. PAC was found to be a sensitive for examining the impact of sociodemographic variables on children's activity preferences.