Park developments: Misc notes 2026

What is happening in the area of accessible play spaces?

Regular readers will know that Special Education Today has a soft spot in its cold, hard, behavioristic heart for making sure that kids with disabilities have spaces where they can engage in kid-like outdoors activities—play! Remember when we described a local facility called “Bennett’s Village” when it was just beginning as a project and then toured it before it opened and then posted about it again later (24 April 2025) and again (30 April 2025)?¹ But our interest wasn’t just the local goings on. SET had a story 17 January 2024 about the mayor of Lincoln (NE, US) discussing accessible playgrounds.

AI-generated image of children playing on teeter totter. It is AI…is there an extra leg or foot on the child at the left? Sigh. “Hey, AI bot. Kids generally have two or fewer legs. There may be some in history with three legs…but, you know…. Two would be better in future illustrations.”

News

Some more recent developments passed in front of my eyes. I want to take a moment to note them here so that Dear Readers may pursue those stories that might be helpful to them.

• On 26 January 2026 in the Wilkes Journal-Patriot, Jule Hubbard published a report about a newly opened playground and park that is affiliated with an elementary school in Mount Pleasant (PA, US). The article is entitled, “Mt. Pleasant’s inclusive playground opens.”

• Trillium Health Resources, a North Carolina (US) managed care organization supporting mental health, substance use, brain injury, and intellectual and developmental disabilities, has a page entitled “Inclusive playgrounds” that explains basic concepts and links to dozens of playground for which it has provided grants.

• On the Sart News Group site, Lianna Bass wrote about a facility being planned for an area of Ocean City (NJ, US). Her story called “New “playground coming to Chandler Park: Jake’s Law Grant helps fund inclusive ADA play area” was published 23 January 2025.

• The Precinct Reporter Group of Long Beach (CA, US), posted 17 April 2025 that there is “New Construction for Ramona Park Playground.” Some of the new construction is designed to make the facilities accessible.

• All Rec, an organization devoted to promoting accessible play spaces (and selling equipment for such spaces). It keeps track of development in the Washington, DC, area and surrounding areas. The site has a page called “News about playgrounds” (it is actually multiple pages with links to posts going back to 2020).

• Citizen Portal has an AI-generated story with the headline, “Brentwood Park playground to be replaced with age-separated, accessible play areas; other city park projects announced”; Brentwood Park is in North Burnaby (BC, CA).

Literature

Finally, for the academics among us, Tina Stanton-Chapman (my former UVA colleague) published at chapter called “Playground Design and Activities to Foster Inclusion of Children with Developmental Disabilities” in January of 2026. It appeared in a volume that Laura Nabors and Tina edited. Here’s the abstract for the chapter:

This chapter analyzes the design, implementation, and impact of playgrounds that foster inclusion for young children with developmental disabilities. It highlights the rising prevalence of these disabilities in the U.S. and the importance of social participation—engagement with environment and peers—for children’s well-being. Differentiating accessible, inclusive, and universal playgrounds, the chapter emphasizes that universal playgrounds, based on Universal Design principles, best serve children and caregivers of all abilities with equitable, engaging, and developmentally appropriate play. Using evidence-based design and stakeholder feedback, a case study of a universally designed playground shows high utilization across ages, with over 80% of the facility accessible. Survey and observational data reveal positive experiences for children, grandparents, and caregivers, including shared play and increased engagement. While barriers to social play persist, universal playgrounds help overcome exclusion, supporting social integration for children with disabilities.The chapter advocates for data-driven evaluation and inclusive playground design to fulfill the rights and needs of diverse families.

Movahead and colleagues (2023) collected policy documents and conducted surveys of stakeholders’ opinions to assess conditions win play spaces in Canada and internationally. They found that “children with disabilities lack opportunities to engage fully in the physical and social aspects of playgrounds and spontaneous play activities with their peers.” They have recommendations.

Also, Alice Moore, Bryan Boyle, and Helen Lynch—all affiliated with the University College Cork, Ireland—have a series of three papers on the topic (2022, 2023a, 2023b). They approach the topics from the perspective of occupational therapy. These journals are not among those that I read regularly…sigh…so I leave it up to any Dear Reader who does examine the papers to judge the quality and utility of the reports.

References

Moore, A., Lynch, H., & Boyle, B. (2022). A national study of playground professionals universal design implementation practices. Landscape Research, 47(5), 611-627. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2022.2058478

Moore, A., Boyle, B., & Lynch, H. (2023a). Designing for inclusion in public playgrounds: a scoping review of definitions, and utilization of universal design. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 18(8), 1453-1465. https://doi.org/10.1080/17483107.2021.2022788

Moore, A., Boyle, B., & Lynch, H. (2023b). Designing public playgrounds for inclusion: A scoping review of grey literature guidelines for Universal Design. Children's Geographies, 21(3), 422-441. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2022.2073197

Movahed, M., Martial, L., Poldma, T., Slanik, M., & Shikako, K. (2023). Promoting health through accessible public playgrounds. Children, 10(8), 1308. https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/10/8/1308

Stanton-Chapman, T. L. (2026). Playground design and activities to foster inclusion of children with developmental disabilities. In L. Nabors & T. L. Stanton-Chapman (Eds,), Developmental disabilities and chronic illness in young children (pp. 59-73). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-08523-8_4

Footnote

1. There are additional posts about Bennett’s Village. Just search the archives. Some of them may be behind the pay wall, but some should be out in the wild!