Why build an accessible percussion wall?

Here’s a fun project I recently built for a local family — I designed a percussion wall so that all the materials and instruments are accessible to a child who uses a wheelchair and a stander. The wall incorporates a variety of percussion instruments like Boomwhackers that we Velcroed so they can be played like a xylophone or pulled off, bells, chimes, jingle bells, Sound Shape drum heads, bongos, castanets and custom-made shelving to match the wall.

Percussion walls can target many different goals and work on a variety of skills, such as:

Physical – the instruments are all placed at different levels to work on reaching, different arm movements, kicking and stretching.

Cognitive – Finding notes, exploring different sounds, and eye gaze tracking, attention span, memory. And the bright high contrast colors help with vision.

Communication/Social – Turn-taking, self expression, requesting and joint attention can all be targeted during a jam session.

Just having a place that kids with and without disabilities can gather and play together is huge. Kids of all abilities (and ages) can have fun experimenting with sounds on this percussion wall.

The project was made even more fun because I got to enlist the help of my dad, who builds and fixes clocks, and my friend Michael, who builds and fixes boats.

Now that the family has had a chance to try it all out, there are still a few things to tweak, but it was really cool to problem-solve and create something fun and functional.

I’d love to create more of these for schools or museums, and outdoor versions for playgrounds.

What spaces do you play in that could use an accessible percussion wall? Leave a note in the comments.