The development of an application that supports body awareness for children with visual impairments and additional disabilities

Abstract

The manuscript reports a case study of a design-based research effort to create an app that promotes body awareness among students with visual impairments (VIs) and additional disabilities. Since 2012, a multidisciplinary team has been developing and testing an app called “Body Awareness through Movement and Music,” designed to help children with VIs and additional disabilities improve their body awareness. The app is embedded with features grounded in structured movement routine (SMR) theory. The research effort examines whether a well-designed, intuitive user interface can support improved body awareness of students with VIs and multiple disabilities when used within the itinerant teaching model. A prototype of the app was presented at an international conference where attendees reacted positively to the possibility of using the tool to support body awareness. The prototype was used in a case study with one participant through a multi-sensory approach, with consistency and repetition. Initial findings indicate use of the app provided a SMR that enabled the participant to exhibit appropriate behavior.