Motorized wheelchair driving by disabled children.

Thirteen children with physical disabilities, normal intelligence and stable family situations were studied to learn whether children under age 4 years could learn competent control of a motorized wheelchair. Their mean age was 31.3 months (range 20 to 37 months). There were six girls and seven boys. Each child required adaptive seating to manipulate the control stick in a conventional motorized wheelchair. Without specific training instructions, parents introduced the wheelchairs under pleasant circumstances at home. Daily logs and engine-hour-meters indicate that 12 children learned seven pre-established driving skills within a mean cumulative period of 34.4 hours (range 6.6 to 168 hours) distributed over an average 16.3 days (range 3 to 50 days). Actual cumulative wheelchair movement averaged 8.1 hours (range 1.7 to 26.1 hours). All learned a cluster of four to five skills over a one to five day period. Start-stop and circling were the two initial skills in all but one case. In four children, the first skill appeared after a latent period of 5, 6, 12 and 43 days. Children as young as 24 months can learn to drive motorized wheelchairs. Because of the theoretical importance of approximating normal gross motor milestones, powered mobility should be considered an early rehabilitative intervention for physically disabled children.