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Independent mobility plays a crucial role in a child’s physical, cognitive and social development: reduced opportunities for play and exploration mean that the child is exposed to fewer stimuli and less experience of control over his or her environment. As a result he/she develops a ‘learned helplessness’ which is evident in all aspects of the child's behaviour. Motivation is badly affected by inability and frustration; this in turn makes the child less likely to attempt the playful and exploratory activities vital to the development and acquisition of new skills. The result is a circular process which is increasingly detrimental as the child grows older.
Recent studies in the UK, Sweden, North America and Australia have begun to investigate whether powered mobility aids can prevent this process. This has challenged the traditional view of powered mobility devices which asserts that they should not be made available until all other avenues to mobility have proved unsuccessful. The rationale was that powered mobility might reduce the activity level of the patient, and encourage dependence on the mobility aid. However, results from these studies have shown that powered mobility devices are in fact extremely powerful motivating tools, that the general activity level of children increases with the provision of powered mobility, and, with the independence gained, the child becomes much more active and responsible.
The majority of these studies have focused upon the use of standard electric wheelchairs by young physically disabled children. However, many severely disabled children cannot, for physical, perceptual or cognitive reasons, control an ordinary powered chair. The aim of the Smart Wheelchair project is to develop an augmentative mobility aid to provide independent mobility for such children, and to investigate how experience of mobility affects their physical, cognitive, social and communicative development. The chairs are not designed as mobility aids (although they obviously are) but as educational and therapeutic tools.
The CALL Centre carried out its own major research project into the effectiveness of the Smart Chair in developing mobility, communication and motivation. It is still one of very few independant studies that have been made on this topic, which is notoriously difficult to analyse, and created many useful tools and benchmarking procedures for assessment puroposes. You can find a free downloadable copy of the report here
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