Titli: From Product to Pattern. Participatory DIY Making as Empowerment for Low-Income Caregivers of Children with Cerebral Palsy
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: This paper argues that the most important output of the Titli project is not a device but a transferable way of making one. Titli is a low-cost upright mobility aid for children with cerebral palsy (CP), co-designed in 2024 with Anita, a mother, teacher and skilled tailor at Prabhat Education Foundation in Ahmedabad, India, for her daughter Tanvi, who has GMFCS level IV CP. Its materials cost INR 575, against INR 195,622 recorded for the commercial product it adapts, the Firefly Upsee. Field research with low-income families showed that many caregivers already hold the craft skills such devices require (tailoring, carpentry, plumbing, electrical repair) but do not apply them to their child's needs. The barriers are knowledge, confidence and a usable pattern, not ability. Titli was therefore treated as a medium: a fully worked case through which a caregiver's existing skill became an assistive device she could make, repair and adapt herself. The paper reports the field study, the participatory making process including two documented failures, and the design of a bilingual (English and Hindi), illustration-led making booklet that any tailor can follow without a designer present. It proposes a replication model in which NGOs and community-based rehabilitation workers distribute such booklets so that families with matching skills can build devices at home rather than wait for donated ones, and it sets out the safety, clinical and ethical conditions under which DIY assistive technology is responsible.
Author: Suresh, Nimisha
Institution: National Institute of Design
Language: English
Subfield: Occupational Therapy
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225002549