Peer 2 Peer: Designing for Peer Social Engagement and Social-Emotional Wellbeing of Children with Cerebral Palsy

The aim of the research is to investigate how design-based relational play can be used to empower and encourage children with cerebral palsy, aged 7 to 10 years, to engage pro-actively in peer social interactions to support the development of peer social skills and social-emotional wellbeing.

Middle childhood (age 7-10) is a critical time when children develop peer social skills, and relational play is a key means by which children learn to interact and build friendships. However, peer social interaction is often a challenge for children with cerebral palsy. These challenges have roots in subjective, attitudinal, and environmental factors, both physical and social.

Design can create physical and virtual play environments and tools to enable children within relational play, by engaging them in social play activities that can provide support with attitudinal and subjective factors. Furthermore, through adopting a co-design perspective, these factors can be reframed and approached in a child-centred way, so that children become active agents in their own developments for it to meet their needs and wishes and make them equal players.

This project will therefore research and develop new understandings of how relational play can be used to enhance peer socialisation, and how to design innovative relational play solutions using evidence-based child-friendly design strategies, to help children with cerebral palsy develop peer social skills. The benefit of this research will be to promote their social inclusion and social equality through levelling the playing field, and by extension improve the social-emotional wellbeing of these children.

Project website: http://peer-2-peer.co.uk/