Compare methods

	Wheelchair Skills Training Program	Wheelchair Skills Test
Field	Disability Studies	Disability Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2004	2002
Originator	R. Lee Kirby and colleagues (Dalhousie University)	R. Lee Kirby and colleagues (Dalhousie University)
Type	Structured skills-training intervention protocol	Standardized wheelchair-skills performance assessment
Seminal source	MacPhee, A. H., Kirby, R. L., Coolen, A. L., Smith, C., MacLeod, D. A., & Dupuis, D. J. (2004). Wheelchair skills training program: a randomized clinical trial of wheelchair users undergoing initial rehabilitation. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 85(1), 41-50.	Kirby, R. L., Dupuis, D. J., MacPhee, A. H., Coolen, A. L., Smith, C., Best, K. L., Newton, A. M., Mountain, A. D., MacLeod, D. A., & Bonaparte, J. P. (2004). The Wheelchair Skills Test (version 2.4): measurement properties. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 85(5), 794-804.
Aliases	WSTP, Wheelchair Skills Training Program, Wheelchair Skills Program training protocol	WST, Wheelchair Skills Test, Wheelchair Skills Test Questionnaire, WST-Q
Related	3	3
Summary	The Wheelchair Skills Training Program (WSTP) is a structured, evidence-based intervention that teaches wheelchair users the individual skills needed for safe, independent mobility, from basic maneuvers to advanced ones such as curb negotiation and wheelies. Developed by R. Lee Kirby and colleagues at Dalhousie University as the training companion to the Wheelchair Skills Test, the WSTP applies motor-learning principles — goal setting, structured practice, feedback, and progression — and was shown in randomized controlled trials (MacPhee et al. 2004; Best et al. 2005) to produce clinically significant, safe gains in wheelchair-skill capacity. It pairs assessment and training in a single closed loop: test, train the deficits, retest.	The Wheelchair Skills Test (WST) is a standardized, objective assessment of how well a wheelchair user can perform a graded set of individual wheelchair skills, from basic maneuvers like rolling forward and turning to advanced ones like descending curbs and performing a stationary wheelie. Developed by R. Lee Kirby and colleagues at Dalhousie University and validated through a 2002 pilot and a 2004 measurement-properties study of version 2.4, the WST scores each skill for whether the user can perform it and how safely, then summarizes performance as a percentage of skills passed. It turns the diffuse notion of wheelchair mobility into a reliable, comparable, and trainable outcome.