The Role of Home Designs in Supporting Stunted Children's Motor Development: A Case of Stunted Children's Houses in Surabaya

A house is the first environment in which a child experiences the world. It is the primary environment for children to undergo growth and development through the activities and interactions that occur in it. In the motor development stage, children tend to act based on their perceptions of what is provided by their environment. This can be explained through the concept of affordance, where affordance is understood as the potential provided by the environment for users to behave, act, and to perform in it. This becomes a problem when a house is inhabited by children with developmental barriers – in this case, motor development. One example of a child with motor barriers is a stunted child. To promote fine and gross motor development, particular attention must be given to the architectural proportions of dwellings, notably for a stunted child who faces obstacles to physical exercise. To meet the needs of stunted children, this research aims to determine the functionality of residential spaces based on elements that facilitate children’s motor activities. By employing a phenomenological approach that focuses on the interactions of stunted children in their homes which impact behavior and activities, the research findings probe at the idea of a stunting-friendly housing environment. The study employs a qualitative strategy and a naturalistic paradigm, prioritizing participant knowledge—that is, parents of stunted children—in its research design. Parents of stunted children who dwell in houses are the study participants. To see how kids interacted with their house environment, observations and interviews were done. The research’s conclusions encourage the idea of a straightforward, handicapped-accessible residential space that can be used in houses occupied by stunted children. Keywords: housing, affordance, motor development, stunted children, behavior