Family-Professional Collaboration on Modified Ride-on Car Intervention for Young Children: Two Case Reports

Abstract

Aims

The study aimed to describe the implementation of a collaborative ride-on car (ROC) intervention by applying a practice model of family-professional collaboration. The model involves specific strategies for collaboration, “visualizing a preferred future” and “scaling questions.”

Methods

The participants were two young children with mobility limitations and their mothers. The 12-week of ROC intervention involved training sessions with a therapist and home sessions. The outcomes included the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) and Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS).

Results

The collaborative strategies facilitated parent engagement in goal setting, planning, and evaluation. After the intervention, the mothers’ ratings of their children’s performance and parent satisfaction on the COPM increased by 6 and 3 points, respectively, and the level of goal attainment exceeded expectations (+1 on GAS) in both families. Prior to the ROC intervention, both families were hesitant to use powered mobility. However, the experience of participating in the ROC intervention process broadened parents’ perspectives on self-directed mobility and led them to explore options for their children to move independently.

Conclusions

The collaborative ROC intervention can be used as an intervention for early mobility and a bridging step for families reluctant to use a powered wheelchair.

Keywords:

• Collaborative goal setting
• early mobility
• family-centered service mobility limitation
• parent engagement
• power mobility

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the children and families who participated in this study and Dae-Young Seong for providing technical support for the car modifications.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Mihee An

Mihee An (PT, PhD) is an assistant professor at the Department of Physical Therapy, Kaya University, Republic of Korea. Her research interests include family-centered service, family-professional collaboration, interventions to improve activity and participation of children with disabilities.

Jeonghui Kim

Jeonghui Kim (PT, PhD) is a pediatric physical therapist and an adjunct professor at the Department of Physical Therapy, Daegu University, Republic of Korea.