Adapting ride-on toy cars as a tool to promote leisure: A feasibility study in Colombia

ABSTRACT

Go Baby Go is a program at the University of Delaware that adapts ride-on toy cars for the recreation of children with disabilities. Colombia’s health-care system faces many challenges in delivering early mobility devices to these children; thus, here (in Colombia), no dedicated programs such as Go Baby Go exist. In this study, we examined how feasible it would be to implement a Go Baby Go program in our country. Electronic and seating adaptations to the cars were made and described. We chose three participants from a pool of children with cerebral palsy (Gross Motor Function Classification System IV), according to a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Then, we measured theirs and their parent’s level of satisfaction with the experience through a Likert scale. All of the parents described seeing their kids ride the adapted cars as “extremely fun”. They also said that it is “extremely important” to have these devices close by so that their children can get involved in recreational activities.

KEYWORDS:

• adaptation
• disability
• leisure
• low-cost assistive technologies
• ride-on toy car