Wheeling: Activities for kids with mobility impairments

Active for Life is happy to announce a special new series of resources on our site: Wheeling activities for children with mobility-related physical disabilities.

These wheelchair activities and games have been developed in part from the extensive resources of the Let’s Play program in British Columbia. Like Let’s Play, we want to help kids with mobility impairments to develop physical literacy from an early age by providing these activities to parents.

Given the right opportunities, we know that children who develop their movement skills and knowledge will have more confidence and motivation to be physically active. Active for Life’s new wheeling activities help parents create those opportunities at home.

Skills develop over time

As always, it’s important to remember that motor skills develop over time, and every child will develop their skills and abilities at different rates depending on their individual circumstances. Kids with physical disabilities may experience even more pronounced differences in their rates of development, so it’s important to be patient as you play together.

In terms of skill development, what should you look for? Let’s Play identifies four developmental milestones following the introduction of a skill:

• Assisted: the child can perform basic elements of the skill with cues and assistance from a parent, teacher, or other facilitator
• Independent: the child can perform the skill without assistance, but he or she may have trouble with certain aspects or applications of the skill
• Advanced: the child can perform the skill automatically and proficiently in moderately fast and dynamic activity situations
• Mastery: the child can perform the skill proficiently at high speeds and they can also apply the skill to complex activity situations and adapt it to new challenges

Share these resources

If you know any parents who have children with mobility-related physical disabilities, be sure to share these new wheeling activities with them. If you are a teacher who wants to learn more about Let’s Play’s innovative school programming, be sure to visit the Let’s Play website to review the best practices for classroom inclusion and to access the free online toolkit for developing physical literacy at school.