Contextualising fastening use on children’s clothing to inform the development of novel intervention materials suitable to support independent dressing skills in children with Visual Impairment

Dressing is an adaptive, purposive independent living skill that is essential for everyday life. The current study is one of the first to explore how types of clothing fastening (zips, buttons, poppers and shoelaces) may impact on the development of dressing skills in children as mediated by gross and fine motor skill development. A survey was conducted to examine types of fastenings commonly found on clothes for infants and children. The clothing sample (N = 1,569) was drawn from the top five UK children’s clothing stores, and correlated with an online forum for parents. The survey assessed the types of functional fastenings on items of clothing from two age groups: premature - 2 years; and 2 years - 14 years. The results report frequencies of fastenings across both groups. This was considered indicative of the likelihood of exposure to fastenings for children and so may shed light on the incidental learning opportunities made available to children to develop in situ self-dressing skills. It is posited that fastening exposure may have an impact on the development of gross and fine motor skills suitable for dressing. The data were then used to inform the development of intervention materials suitable for teaching independent dressing skills to children with visual impairments