OVERALL WINNERS for INCLUSIVE PLAY

Mongo the Gorilla, Cowley the Cow, Nurserytime Bear and Arnold the Snoring Pig

The toys were tested by 40 children from 8 months to 11 years old with a wide range of different needs, these needs included children with cerebral palsy, hearing impairments, some with hearing aids and some with cochlear implants and children with brain injury.

These are the comments we received from focus group evaluations co-ordinated by Carole Burton (Editor, Good Toy Guide) at the National Association of Toy and Leisure Libraries.

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All of these products were felt to be excellent! Perfect for children with additional needs especially when the switch plug was attached, this made it easy for children to ‘turn’ the toy on no matter their ability.

Mongo’s hand clapping encouraged the children to clap hands and many of the children enjoyed singing along with him. He was particularly useful to use with children who have just be fitted with a hearing aid or a cochlear implant. He was used in a vowel recognition game – ‘oo’ is the monkey vowel and the children were delighted to have Mongo as the symbol. A deputy head of a P.S.L.D school felt that she would buy and use this switch toy with music as it was invaluable in a 1 to 1 situation with children with a severe learning disability.

A recommended modification for Mongo is to change his name to Mongo the Monkey.

Cowley the Cow great toy that encouraged the children to make the animal sounds as they sang along with or listened to Cowley. Encouraged the children to move along to the singing cow with flapping ears!

The Nurserytime Bear was used as a therapeutic resource – a fun play item and a bedtime routine toy – very versatile. It was excellent for encouraging fine and gross motor skills, particularly reaching and stretching out to switch, and also encouraging a functional touch/grasp. Good introduction to cause and effect skills, speaking and listening, observation and concentration. It was felt to be a very sensory toy, useful for calming and relaxing the sensory system as it is a soft cuddly toy with a ‘twinkly’ sound to the bears voice.

Arnold the Snoring Pig is very huggable and the children found the snoring very entertaining. Arnold appealed more to the older children/young people with additional needs. Mainstream children enjoyed him as well, but tended to lose interest quicker. But he did make everyone laugh adults and children alike!

All of these toys were felt to be excellent for encouraging therapeutic goals for the children. They were felt to have good movements and pleasant sounds. Good materials – soft and cuddly, but a little difficult to clean. A storage bag would be a great and useful addition. It was good that they could be used with or without the switch lead, but the switch lead is a very useful and welcome addition.

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Watch the video of young children at KoolKidz Nursery playing with our switch adapted toys.

Callum - Dream-Gamer Mini-Joystick

After a few years of trying to find ways for our son Callum to play the PlayStation with the help of Dream-Gamer we have succeeded in our challenge and have an extremely happy gamer in the house, who can now compete with his dad and friends.

Callum has always loved cars and wanted to play rally games etc, but he found it very hard to keep the car on the road or even go in a straight line, as all the controls we tried were too fast or too sensitive.

I first contacted Mike from Dream-Racer in June to ask if I bought an item could I return it if it was not right for my son. He instantly came back and said that we could trial some of the equipment to see which would be suitable! We tried a couple of things, but unfortunately for Callum it was still very hard for him to be accurate. I advised Mike from Dream-Racer and with his help and extreme patience, I explained that Callum had Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome, which has the mannerisms of Athetoid Cerebral Palsy (with a few extra habits added). After hearing that Callum could use a remote control car quite accurately, he suggested trying the mini-mouse and advised me how to set it up.

As you will see from the video, we have set up the mini-joystick with 2 switches, the green one for go (forwards) and the red one for stop (reverse) the joy-stick is the steering. It is so easy for Callum to use, he has been playing rally games and other road games, which all work with the system as it is all connected through a hand set for PlayStation, which has been specially made by Dream-gamer to use their Gamer equipment.

I cannot thank Mark and Mike enough, if it wasn't for him, I don't think we would have accomplished Callum's dream of being able to use the PlayStation.

Thank you Dream-Racer.

Watch the video of Callum using his Dream-Gamer Mini-Joystick on the PlayStation.

Scott - Dream-Gamer- Switch System

It was approaching Xmas, and yet again I was finding it difficult to think of gifts for my son Scott who is 10 and has Cerebral Palsy. I wanted a TV interactive game - something that he could have fun with and use as independently as possible. Most of the games on the market had simple controls aimed at much younger children. His friends his age have PlayStations. I thought about it a lot, how wonderful it would be for Scott to be able to operate a PlayStation just like his friends, but never considered he would be able to, as the controls require good hand functionality and control. That's when I was thrilled to come across the Dream-Gamer Web Site and was inspired by the story of another young boy like Scott, who had similar disabilities, but through a brilliant piece of equipment had been given access to independently play on a PlayStation.

I contacted Mike, explained Scott's disabilities and that Scott could use switches but would have difficulty with the existing adapted controller, due to the joy stick. After lots of consultations with me to ensure that he had all the facts, Mike suggested that they would work on putting together a new switch adapted controller which would operate the PlayStation purely through switches. Mike has the patience of a 'Saint' and was very kind and trusting to send me the equipment to trial.

Scott was thrilled on Xmas morning to receive a PlayStation especially adapted by "Father Xmas". He has five different colour switches on a switchboard that control different functions e.g. ‘forward’, ‘back’, ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘enter/select’. There is capacity for another one to operate ‘start’.

We started with a simple Bob the Builder game to break him into it, not wanting him to get frustrated if he could not operate the games successfully straight away. He still enjoys this game and he now has others, including a Lightning McQueen racing game, where he loves to crash the car. He is finding it difficult to understand the concept of some of the games but I am sure that will come with time and experience. The main thing is that Scott is having fun, he is operating the PlayStation independently and he is doing what his all his friends do. He is getting a right little show off when his friends call around to play with him.

This equipment has given Scott access to play in a way that I never thought he could. We are all very grateful to Mark and Mike for working with us to make this possible.

Scott, Karen & Kevin Turner

link to the Dream-Gamer product section.