Toys Modified for Special Children

Youngsters with disabilities shouldn’t be deprived of playthings to develop creative and social skills, say several entrepreneurs who have started companies to produce toys specially suited for them.

When R. J. Cooper of Dana Point, Calif., started adapting existing children’s cars with switches and joysticks for disabled youngsters, he realized that he had found something that could become a low-cost alternative to electric wheelchairs. His CooperCars are built with safeguards so an adult can prevent the child from banging into things.

“One thing’s for certain. The CooperCar is surely more ‘cool’ and motivating than a wheelchair,” he says.

Toys that operate with the blink of an eye, a touch, a sip, a puff or any other slight gesture have been adapted by Steven Kanor of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. His company, Toys for Special Children, adapts conventional toys that can be used by children who might not be able to do much more than breathe. Kanor, a biomedical engineer, thinks that once a child learns to operate a switch to make a toy work, the play possibilities are endless.

And Anthony Palumbo, known as Dr. Silly, is creator of the Puppet Therapy Institute of West Barnstable, Mass., which operates a mobile play center called the Sillyumphbus program. This traveling theater in a bus lets as many as 10 disabled children take part in puppet play that addresses the child’s specific therapeutic goals.

For information, call R. J. Cooper & Associates, (714) 240-1912, or Toys for Special Children (914) 478-0960.