Young children with physical disabilities: Caregiver perspectives about assistive technology

Caregiver reports of problematic activities/routines with their young children with physical disabilities and types of assistive technology used as solutions were investigated in this study. In addition, caregiver competence with assistive technology use and ways in which caregivers received information and training were also examined. A subset of 164 caregivers who identified their children as having physical disabilities was retrieved from an archived database and used for analysis. Results indicated that children experienced various problems when participating in daily activities/routines. An average of 60.4% of their caregivers found solutions to these problems and 64.5% of these solutions involved the use of assistive technology. Only a small percent (13.4%) of caregivers reported feeling very competent at using assistive technology and 68.2% of those had received information from an early intervention provider. This research exemplifies the importance of both using assistive technology interventions for children with physical disabilities and ensuring that early intervention providers are sufficiently knowledgeable to train caregivers so that their children gain maximal opportunities to participate and learn.