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We present an on-going multidisciplinary and multisectorial strategic development project put forth by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of greater Montreal (CRIR) in Quebec, Canada and its members, in collaboration with a Montreal “renovation-ready” shopping mall, local community organizations, and local, national and international research and industrial partners. Beginning in 2011, within the context of the Mall as Living Lab (MALL), more than 45 projects were initiated to: (1) identify the environmental, physical and social obstacles and facilitators to participation; (2) develop technology and interventions to optimize physical and cognitive function participation and inclusion; (3) implement and evaluate the impact of technology and interventions in vivo. Two years later and working within a participatory action research (PAR) approach, and the overarching WHO framework of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), we discuss challenges and future endeavors. Challenges include creating and maintaining partnerships, ensuring a PAR approach to engage multiple stakeholders (e.g. people with disabilities, rehabilitation and design researchers, health professionals, community members and shopping mall stakeholders) and assessing the overall impact of the living lab. Future endeavors, including the linking between research results and recommendations for renovations to the mall, are also presented.

Persons with disabilities face challenges which impact on their ability to accomplish daily activities such as moving around, communicating and fulfilling social roles. Social participation assumes individuals with disabilities live within their community and interact with others. Shopping malls are public spaces used by individuals for various reasons. Here, all components of the social and physical environment interact and have an impact on social participation. This exploratory and qualitative study provides a multi-perspective assessment of the usability, as well as of the environmental facilitators and obstacles to social participation in shopping malls. The results also suggest necessary improvements. We interviewed 15 persons with disabilities, 15 rehabilitation professionals and 9 shopkeepers. Participants viewed the mall as a multifunctional place for everyday use, but at times, also as a limiting place. Multiple facilitators and obstacles were identified; the most important were interaction with shopkeepers and the mall's design for mobility or wayfinding. All participants agreed shopkeeper training and an improved awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities would be beneficial. Multiple stakeholders’ perceptions provide a basis for further investigation about needed changes and their potential for making malls more welcoming and inclusive to all.

Adapting public spaces for persons with disabilities can be both physically and socially challenging. The two pilot studies presented explore the existing physical conditions of the mall and the social experiences of the mall users as these are documented and experienced by them. The research goals include understanding the physical characteristics of the mall, how access happens, what people experience in real time when going to the mall and what this might mean in terms of issues of social construction of space and personal lived experiences. In both pilot studies, the methods included visual documentation and content analysis of the existing spaces and their design, followed by live in-mall walk-abouts with participants, during which narratives of the experiences were recorded. Researchers engaged collaboratively with participants to understand the experiences, challenges and situations they experienced. Participants include persons with reduced vision or severe vision loss and persons in motorized wheelchairs. Results reveal issues of lack of accessibility, poor contrast and issues of way-finding. Social stigmas add to mall experiences and participants nevertheless reveal the value of the social experiences despite the mall elements hampering their access.

Mots cles : Programme ; Participation ; Activite « preparer un repas » Introduction.– Les troubles cognitifs et comportementaux apres une lesion cerebrale peuvent entrainer des restrictions de participation. Un programme de readaptation holistique, multidisciplinaire et intensif (5 j/semaine pendant 7 semaines) visant l’amelioration de la participation des personnes cerebrolesees a ete developpe a la Pitie-Salpetriere, France. L’efficacite du programme n’a jamais ete investiguee. Objectif.– Documenter l’effet du programme sur l’activite « preparer les repas ». Methode.– Mesures repetees pre(T1 et T2) et post-programme (T3, T4, T5 jusqu’a 6 mois) avec 7 sujets uniques. Outil de mesure : Cooking Task (CT) (Chevignard, 2000), profil des activites instrumentales (PAI) (Bottari, 2009) et mesure des habitudes de vie (MHAVIE) (Noreau, 2002). Resultats.– Les methodes « two standard-deviation band » et « non-overlap of all pairs » (NAP) pour cas unique demontrent des differences significatives entre les periodes preet post-programme au nombre total d’erreurs au CT (6/7 sujets), en besoin en aide (PAI). L’item preparation de repas de la MHAVIE suggere une amelioration pour 4/7 sujets. Discussion.– L’ensemble des resultats du CT (diminution des erreurs), du PAI et de la MHAVIE suggere une amelioration globale de l’activite « preparer un repas » a la suite du programme de readaptation.

This paper presents a critical hermeneutic interpretation of the meanings, practices and values associated with physical and spatial obstacles present in the shopping experiences of individuals with mobility or visual impairments. The social model of disability, which positions disablement in societal attitudes, understandings, practices, and institutions, has reinforced a view that built environments tend to limit, restrict, segregate, and even oppress differently-abled individuals. Despite the pervasiveness of this view, little research has empirically explored the experiences of, responses to, or evaluations of environmental barriers. In the current study, we interviewed and observed four individuals with visual impairments and four individuals with mobility impairments in hopes of better understanding these topics within a shopping context. Reconstructing participants’ discourses into their implicit narrative structures, we found that participants generally re-established equilibrium in their emplotted encounters with obstacles in the mall, transfiguring challenging and dysfunctional environments into coherent and functional spaces. Our findings challenge the notion that the constructions, meanings, and values of physical and spatial obstacles are universal or intrinsic, and point to the agency of participants in shaping their own plots. We suggest that future research ought to examine physical and spatial obstacles within even broader frameworks of meaning.