EPIC Lab | Our Research

Research Areas

1. Education Access
   The EPIC Lab explores how children with disabilities and their families experience everyday access to education. This work looks at experiences of trips to and from school (e.g., via personal vehicles, school buses, and active modes) and how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted experiences of school access.
    
2. Transportation & Mobility
   The EPIC Lab is involved in numerous studies aimed at understanding and improving experiences of transport, including child car seat safety, public transit station access, accessible taxi experiences and travel patterns, barriers to air travel, and school bus experiences.
    
3. Inclusive Play
   There are various ongoing projects within the EPIC Lab that are focused on understanding how accessible and inclusive playgrounds are experienced, as well as how their designs can be advanced. This research considers playgrounds in public parks and pediatric health care settings. This work aims to improve playground designs and to make it easier for municipalities to build inclusive playgrounds.
    
4. Institutional Ableism
   The EPIC Lab team endeavours to identify, question, and address ableist institutional arrangements. Projects concerning institutional ableism within the Lab include our co-creation work with patients to co-create a pediatric hospital welcome tour and research to improve housing designs and urban planning processes for individuals with developmental disabilities.