The Consumer Product Safety Commission also has a list of magnetic toy companies that have violated mandatory safety standards, which is useful for referring to prior to making a purchase. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends keeping any small or loose magnets away from young children and supervising young children around magnets, as well as checking magnetic toys for cracks in which the internal magnets could come loose. Little Tikes’ Cozy Coupe is a longstanding early childhood staple, but optional motorisation features could make the Coupe an accessible toy for more families.When it comes to magnetic toys, safety is paramount. Why The Sims 4's new inclusion of transgender and disabled sims matters Hasbro’s The Sims is a good example of bodily representation in digital games, offering advanced customisation, including medical wearables such as hearing aids, as well as elements to reflect diverse body shapes and sizes, although feeding tubes, wheelchairs and wheelchair-accessible surroundings are still not available. Fan-generated modifications and online petitions highlight the sustained appetite for fully functional wheelchairs within the Minecraft universe. Recent work has emphasised the need to develop digital games that reflect all children, whether that is in relation to race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, physical difference or disability. But there is still work to be done on design features supporting customisation and their links to the representation of diverse children’s bodies.
Minecraft already offers impressive accessibility features such as an optional speech to text setting to enable children to communicate through voice in the game, using dictation tools. Why is the Barbie DreamHouse so creepy? An expert in the uncanny explains Playing with robots in early childhood has been shown to support empathetic play, emotional awareness and turn-taking for nonverbal children and children with a range of other diagnoses and learning and emotional needs, including ADHD. The technology shows potential to support children’s wellbeing through inclusive design. Though Mattel’s discontinued, internet-connected Hello Barbie raised privacy violation concerns in the ways it shared children’s data, a range of recent studies have highlighted the social and emotional benefits of playing with AI toys such as robots. AI Barbie could interact verbally with children in increasingly sophisticated ways, offering opportunities for creative conversations. But integrating artificial intelligence (AI) could help Barbie better support a range of social and emotional play needs.
Little tikes building blocks movie#
The box office success of the Barbie movie has catapulted the Barbie doll back into the public eye. This would enable parents and carers to add their own “off the shelf” activation switches, such as pull strings, buttons or hand or foot pedals. Better still would be adding a mono jack (a connector that transmits signals) to the circuitry of toys like Violet as standard.
However their adorable, squeeze-activated paws and ears are inaccessible to some children, including those with limited mobility and fine motor skills.įitting Violet with big buttons would improve accessibility. Interactive animals such as LeapFrog’s My Pal Violet bring comfort to many toddlers. So how could the teams behind other well known toys and games work with disabled children to improve accessibility? Here are a few suggestions.
However, as Lego’s braille bricks emphasise, equitable toy and game design need not be complicated. For example, recent research from Lodz University of Technology trialled “interactive sonification” of images in games to help visually impaired children experience shapes and colours through sound. Meanwhile, echoing recent research on the children’s media industry, a concerning range of digital games are still failing to build in progressive representations of disability and diverse bodies.īut evolving technologies could offer opportunities. Simple adaptations, however, could make them accessible to a much broader range of children. Toys with small parts or operating mechanisms, for example, are often inaccessible to children with visual or mobility impairments.
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