Addressing activities of daily living (ADLs) by design: identifying self-care ADL challenges & designing clothing to promote independence for children with disabilities
Date
2018
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Children who have a motor or sensory impairment may struggle with self-care tasks, such as dressing independently, or may be completely reliant on a caregiver to help them perform these tasks. Moreover, the apparel industry may view this population of users as small and therefore not cost-effective to design for, or homogenous in their clothing-related needs, and therefore designed using a “one-solution-fits-all” approach. This dissertation explores the “design for disability” space to identify (1) the range and scope of dressing-related needs specific to a subset of this broad population: children with disabilities and their caregivers, (2) the alternative adaptive clothing solutions commercially available for this population, and (3) the dressing behaviors of the user during a typical dressing task and the usability of a universal design or custom design solution in comparison to commercially available standardized clothing options. Results reveal the importance of dressing as a self-care task and related issues, adaptive clothing and dressing needs reported by this sample population and what solutions are commercially available, and also what typical dressing task behaviors of this sample of children with disabilities are observed when using self-selected clothing, commercially available clothing designed for their typical peers, and clothing design prototypes that address the problem from a universal or custom designed solution. We determine that there is wide range and variation of dressing-related needs for this population, that stakeholders benefit from identifying commercially available alternative solutions, and that a universally designed solution may not be as effective at promoting dressing task independence compared to a customized solution.