Abstract

Clothing is one of the basic needs of human. The children with disability have different clothing requirement from an average and normal group. Both functional and aesthetic features are required in the clothing of differently abled children. Functional features are required to allow more independence in dressing and more self sufficiency in daily activities whereas aesthetic feature are required to distract attention from the disabled part and to provide psychological satisfaction to the wearer. This type of clothing helps the differently abled children to link with the main stream of the society. Therefore there is an urgent need to design clothing according to their special requirements. The aim of this study was to design and develop functional clothing for a differently abled child with paralysis of hands and legs. A questionnaire was developed for personal interview to assess clothing requirements of differently abled child. The identified clothing requirements were incorporated in garment designs. After designing the garment was constructed and given to the child for wear trial. Designed and constructed garment was found to be highly suitable with the suitability level of 2.66 by the differently abled child and his mother. This type of Designing and construction of functional clothing not only give physiological comfort to the children but also enhance psychological comfort by enhancing their selfsteem.