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| TX: 17.12.08 - Disability Toys PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. ROBINSON It's the toy season of course and for some parents choosing the right toy is even more difficult than it is for the majority of us. Children with disabilities need specially adapted toys and there aren't too many of those about. But the range is increasing. In time honoured fashion we sent the BBC age and disability correspondent - Geoff Adams-Spink - out to play. ACTUALITY SINGING ADAMS-SPINK A group of under-fives playing at a nursery attached to a special school in southeast London. Many of them have profound and multiple learning disabilities so play for them has to be adapted. Enabling them to interact with the world around them will be a crucial part of their development, most are unable to speak. The school's assistant head teacher, Clare Barnes, explains that for such children learning to use switches is essential. BARNES At this level a lot of the children are developing an understand of cause and effect, that they do something, they press a switch, and it causes something to happen and that's a really key part of learning to communicate. It also enables them to do something more independently than they can without the switch. They might have to use gesture, which again some of them find difficult because of their physical disabilities. ADAMS-SPINK So as parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles crowd into toy shops and department stores looking for this year's must have plaything what should they buy for children with disabilities similar to those at the nursery? David Baines, the development director for the charity Abilitynet, has a few ideas. BAINES The toys we've got are toys that you could find in a lot of big toyshops but what we've done is adapted each to work with a switch, so that whatever movement you've got you can press the switch and make it do things. ADAMS-SPINK Now who's this? BAINES This is Randy, the hip hop bear. ADAMS-SPINK So he's like a kind of standing up teddy bear, he's got a red and white top on and a kind of quite gaudy set of bells round his neck on a very thick string. BAINES He's got his bling, that's right. Switch him on and he'll sing to us. SINGING BEAR ADAMS-SPINK Right now this is another bear, he's got a very brightly coloured hat on with a tassel at the end, green and red, and he's reading a book. BAINES He is, this is a story time bear, so this one tells us a story. STORY TIME BEAR It was the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. BAINES This range of switch operated soft toys retails for just under £40 each and are marketed by the charity Abilitynet from which they make a profit. At the Willowdene Nursery Randy the hip hop bear and the rest of the Dream Products are a big hit with the children. Clare Barnes again. BARNES They're fantastic, they really motivate the children, they're really nice to look at, they're tactile and then they have sound responses, so that almost all children can gain something from the responses they make when they hit the switch. ADAMS-SPINK Am I right in thinking that buying for children like this is slightly difficult at Christmas, given that the range of toys out there aren't really adapted for their needs? BARNES It can be. It is possible to adapt most battery operated toys to be activated by switches, although you require specialist equipment to adapt it, so it's difficult to go and buy things like this off the shelf. ADAMS-SPINK So what about older children who want to join in with non-disabled friends or siblings? Some arcade style computer games have been adapted to work with switches. Whether it's helping a frog to cross the road, shooting at aliens in space or whacking moles with a giant mallet there's a game out there to suit you. Barry Ellis runs a website called oneswitch.org.uk. ELLIS A One Switch game is the same as any other game but they've reduced the number of controls down to a single button. So, for instance, with this game here - Whack a Mole - this is a brand new game that someone's designed that you can use it with a head tracker, you could use it with an eye tracker - just using your eyes - you can also use it with a singe button or two buttons. ADAMS-SPINK So it's suitable for a kind of - a range of disabilities including quite severe disabilities? ELLIS Absolutely yes. So here we've got nine moles, you've got automatic aiming, so when they appear you hit the switch, a foot pedal I've got here whacking away to bash them on the head. When red moles appear you have to avoid them and it's as simple as that. I shouldn't have hit that one! ADAMS-SPINK With children and teenagers hankering after the latest games consoles Barry Ellis thinks games developers give too little thought to the fact that not everyone's able to master their many buttoned controllers. As he showed me there are alternatives. ELLIS It is a fairly common problem that I think a lot of game developers don't really give a lot of consideration to. This is a game where the baddies are chasing after you and all you have to do is survive and keep them away from you. You'll never beat them forever. But this is a game where one button can do two things. If you hold it you can thrust away from the baddies to try to escape but you've only got so much fuel or you can tap your button ... ADAMS-SPINK And that shoots them. ELLIS ... to shoot them, yeah and you get a different range of weapons to try and keep them away. It's a hopeless battle but it's a fun game. ADAMS-SPINK So on this game, for example, you can't steer then? ELLIS No you're following a pre-set path, as if you were a train. Although you .... ADAMS-SPINK Watch out - watch out. ELLIS ... you can choose, you can get to a junction and if you hold your button down you could choose to go straight and if you don't hold your button down you'll go round a corner. ADAMS-SPINK Dream Products, the company behind the switch toys, has come up with a high tech baseball cap that replaces the usual controller for the Playstation and can be used with other consoles and radio controlled models. In the corridor outside Abilitynet's offices in Warwick I was introduced to Venus the monster truck, a rugged four by four, that took a pounding as I crashed from one wall to the other and back again. BARNES With it comes an alternative remote control. ADAMS-SPINK Aha, this is a baseball cap. BARNES When I look upwards the car will go forwards, when I look down the car goes back and left and right by tilting my head in those directions. ADAMS-SPINK You don't turn your head you tilt your head. BARNES You tilt your head. ADAMS-SPINK The needs of disabled children may not be at the forefront of most toy makers minds but as well as Abilitynet there are others producing especially adapted toys. Such things don't come cheap, however, the monster truck and its baseball cap remote control will set you back £185. But it is encouraging that there are companies willing to go beyond the one size fits all approach of mass produced toys so that disabled children and young or not so young gamers can join in the fun. ROBINSON Geoff Adams-Spink on the market for specially adapted toys. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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