Using Occupational Therapy to Build Accessible Playgrounds
Anna Stathis, ELOTD ’24, assisted Cornell School District with designing a newer, more accessible playground for their students as part of her capstone at Chatham University. (Photo courtesy of Anna Stathis)
It’s important that an inclusive playground should have something for everyone, according to Anna Stathis, ELOTD ’24.
“The coolest, most exciting thing on the playground should be accessible for everyone,” she said. “If there is a main feature, you want to make that as inclusive as possible.”
In the playground she helped design for Cornell School District, a small district of less than 600 students in Coraopolis, Stathis said the coolest feature is likely to be the Sway Fun Glider. It’s a bit similar to a small boat that rocks back and forth, with some models big enough to seat a few kids on either end and a wheelchair in the middle.
Stathis, who worked on the project as part of her Entry-Level Doctor of Occupational Therapy (ELOTD) capstone at Chatham University, said the best part about the glider is how kids make their own games to play on it.
“The great thing about kids is that they’re almost never going to use something the way it’s intended, so they’ll always find ways to make it something for everyone, and everyone will find their unique place on that piece,” she said.
Other new features in the playground, which is set to begin construction during the school’s summer vacation, include sensory panels, musical toys, a platform swing, a crawl space, and soft, porous ground to replace the mulch.
“The capstone wasn’t what I set out to do initially, but the opportunity presented itself to me,” Stathis said. “[Cornell] was involved in a grant that connected them with Chatham and enabled them to make this connection with capstone students.”
With prior fieldwork experience in pediatrics, Stathis was intrigued. She said she had always been interested in universal design and applying the lens of occupational therapy to the community.
“I had always wanted to work with children with disabilities,” she said. “I have a cousin who has bilateral amputations in his legs, so he uses prosthetics. I’ve always been interested in helping people like him and being involved with people like him, and showcasing and enabling the things they are capable of that not everyone realizes.”
Many playgrounds, even if they fill certain accessibility requirements, are still not truly inclusive because of the social or physical barriers they may present to children or caregivers with disabilities. Simple features like curb cuts can open them up to wheelchair users, parents with strollers, and others, Stathis said.
For Aaron Thomas, who’s spent over 10 years as superintendent of Cornell School District, revamping the playground was personal.
“It’s kind of a passion project of my own,” he said. “The existing playground, I believe, is the original structure from when they opened the building in the late seventies. So, my wife, who went to Cornell—she’s also a third-grade teacher here—I believe she had her fifth-grade birthday on that playground.”
After seeing playgrounds at other, larger school districts, Thomas felt like the kids at Cornell deserved to have a nicer place to hold recess. A grant from the Allegheny Intermediate Unit’s Project SEEKS helped the district fund it.
In addition to helping redesign the playground, Stathis helped students in the classroom with their social and emotional skills. One class included a social skills game of Jenga, where each block had a question written upon it.
The student who pulled the block would answer the question before asking a friend for their answer. For the students, who ranged from kindergarten to second grade and had intellectual disabilities or autism, it was a helpful way to stimulate conversations.
“They did a really great job with it, engaging with each other in ways that they typically don’t,” Stathis said. “The teacher later told me that they play the game all the time and they got a lot out of it.”
By the end, the students were more engaged in talking to each other than they were in trying not to knock the tower of blocks over.
“I think Anna’s a rockstar,” Thomas said. “I thought she did a wonderful job.”
He said he hopes students will see the new playground and feel encouraged.
“Cornell, being a small school district with not a lot of resources or a lot of money, it always kind of bothers me that kids are like, ‘Well, those kids can have it, but we can’t, because they’re them and we’re us,’” he said. “No, they’re just as worthy as anybody else. Let’s do what we can to get these kids what they deserve.”
Chatham University offers both an Entry-Level Doctor of Occupational Therapy degree and an online program for OT professionals looking to enhance their careers or transition to teaching. Learn more at chatham.edu.