Bene®ts of a virtual play rehabilitation environment for children with cerebral palsy on perceptions of self-e cacy: a pilot study

This paper presents the results of a clinical trial of a virtual reality play-based intervention. The results of three single case studies are presented. The virtual reality intervention used the MandalaGesture Xtreme technology. It was applied to three school-aged children with cerebral palsy. A pre-test±post-test design was used. The relevant outcome of interest was selfe cacy as measured with the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM). Group scores on the COPM indicated clinically signi®cant changes in self-e cacy for all children. Two of the participants demonstrated the greatest changes in both perceived performance abilities and satisfaction with performance with respect to task speci®c domain areas. Qualitative comments from the participants revealed a high degree of motivation, interest, pleasure, and opportunity for engagement in play, activities not previously engaged in. Overall, this pilot study suggests the viability of a virtual reality play-based intervention as part of the rehabilitation process for children with cerebral palsy. These results form the basis of a larger scale randomized clinical trial.