Professionals’ assessment of fathers’ involvement in the rehabilitation of children with disabilities in early years of development in the United Arab Emirates

Purpose: Contemporary discussions in the field of disability rehabilitation has revolved around family-centered practice which espouse strong partnership between professionals and family to developing children with disabilities. Literature on fathers’ involvement is very limited; with professionals’ perspectives rarely explored. This study adds to the growing literature by exploring rehabilitation professionals’ assessment of fathers’ involvement in United Arab Emirates. Materials and Methods: The revised Family Involvement Questionnaire for Early Childhood was used for data collection. About 320 professionals working with children with disabilities were recruited. The data were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis to validate the instrument, means, multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression. Result: Computation of confirmatory factor analysis and configural invariance estimate supporting the validity of the instrument across different demographics. However, means scores showed that professionals were uncertain (parenting (M=3.90, SD=.62); decision-making, M= 3.63, SD = .73); communication (M = 3.77, SD = .78); collaboration (M = 2.43, SD = .78); home-support (M = 3.54, SD = .77) and volunteering (M = 3.58, SD = .90) about fathers’ involvement in the rehabilitation of children with disabilities. Conclusion: The study concludes with development of training programmes for paternal training and involvement in the rehabilitation of children with disabilities.