Education Center Topics Adaptive Trikes and Chest Prompt Support System
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Adaptive Trikes and Chest Prompt Support System

Elena Noble, MPT | May 2011

A Thank You Letter
Contributed by Lisa Perry, teacher

“Helmets Off” to Rifton for adapting the trike chest prompt support system, giving those students with poor muscle control, the proper upright positioning while riding any of their trikes!

A young boy with muscle control issues hunched over on his red Rifton adaptive tricycle in the hallway of his elementary school because he lacks Rifton's chest prompt support systemHunter usually rode our Rifton trike leaning as far forward (or to the side), with his head down, as he could get. Rifton’s newest chest prompt design has changed all that for Hunter. I believe this new design has given Hunter the support and security he needs to feel safe while riding our trike. He now stays in a position where his chest is in proper alignment, his head is up and he has the opportunity to see where he is going and greet his friends as he pedals by (with assistance). For Hunter this new adaptation has given him a new perspective of what’s happening at school.

It is our hope that another of our students will soon be riding one of our adaptive tricycles as well. I don’t remember her ever being positioned on a trike before, and believe that we never would see her on a trike if it weren’t for this new chest prompt support system. It would not have been safe for us to even try.

A young boy with muscle control issues sits upright in his adaptive tricycle thanks to a Rifton chest prompt support system.

Once on the trike however, she will benefit from the range-of-motion exercise offered when being patterned through each cycle. Thank you Rifton for your new design and the new opportunities it will give our students with special trike riding needs.

Lisa Perry
Truman Elementary School, Iowa

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