Caring for a child with disabilities at home has many emotional, financial, and physical challenges. This page will look at some ways a family can change their home to help with these challenges and provide the best care for a child with special health care needs. As this topic is huge—and because each family’s challenges are specific to their home and their child’s needs—we will not try to cover everything here. Our main focus is the safety and mobility for children who use wheelchairs, but we welcome your comments and ideas for future topics. Please click on the Feedback link at the bottom of every page to email us your input.

Some home adaptations are needed to help a family care for their child and keep him safe, while others help with the child’s independence, so he can get out of bed, use the toilet, move between floors, grab a snack, and get out the door without help.

On this page, we have put home retro-fits into three broad groupings:

• Ramps/Entry – Access to the home itself can be the biggest concern for a family with a child who uses a wheelchair or other mobility device.
• Bathrooms – The size and floor plan of bathrooms is often the greatest challenge within the home.
• Other rooms – Hallways, bedrooms, kitchens, garages, and other living spaces each bring their own set of challenges.

Wheelchairs

For a child using a wheelchair, some homes are not easy to enter or get around in. For example, a split-entry home—where the front door opens to a landing with a short flight of stairs going both ways, one up, one down—may be a big challenge.

Ramps

Bathrooms pose many challenges for households caring for a child in a wheelchair. It is of great value for families to think about the following:

Size

Sinks

Counter Space

Toilets

Bathing

Families who care for children with life-long health issues at home, such as those who use wheelchairs, suggest a series of retro-fits throughout the rest of the home as well.

Bedrooms

Kitchens

Garages

In cold or wet climates, families may decide to set up a wheelchair ramp in the garage, so they don’t have to worry that an outdoor ramp will be wet, icy, or snow-covered. The first thing to consider for a garage ramp is the size of the garage—it must be wide enough and tall enough to fit both the ramp and the car. Vans with built-in wheelchair lifts are often taller than minivans or SUVs and may not easily enter a garage.

Therapy Rooms

Doors

Rugs and Carpets

Indoor Mobility, Stairways, and Furniture Placement

For young or more headstrong children, it is vital to be cautious with stairs so that a child in a chair doesn’t accidently wheel down them. Parents of children with wheelchairs suggest placing sturdy gates at the tops of all stairs.

Other Considerations

• Added lighting will help with safety in areas such as stairways.
• Push/pull lever faucets are helpful for children with limited hand strength.
• Side-by-side refrigerators are easier to reach for children in wheelchairs than vertically arranged ones.
• Entry and inner door lever-type door knobs are easier to use than regular doorknobs.
• Wide swing hinges allow use of the whole doorway.
• Reinforcement of walls will better support grab bars.

Adapting a home can be costly, but it is worthwhile to think about the range of costs involved. One family may choose to design and build a new home, tailored to a child in a wheelchair or some other condition. Another family might put in an entry ramp, renovate their bathroom, and make a few other changes, such as changing lighting and adding safety railings and support bars.

Someone with a lower income may struggle to make even minor changes. They may need to count on organizations that help families with children who have disabilities. The need for the services of such groups often exceeds their funding. (See the bottom of this page for contact information for such groups.)

Families who have been through the process of building a custom home recommend seeking a builder with this type of experience—someone who is able to change things and knows the special challenges of planning and building a home for a child with special health care needs. Families often need to alter their plan and ask for added changes throughout the building process.

It is not easy to put an exact cost to these changes. One family that built a home designed for a child in a wheelchair said it cost them roughly $40,000 more than building a standard home. This family chose to live in a suburban location because their dollars would stretch further there and allow them to live in the home they truly wanted.