Customizing Toys for Disabled Children
From: Physical Therapy Products - 01/07/2009

A study titled "Playing, Toys and Discapacity" has shown that only 69% of
commercial toys are accessible for children with a hearing discapacity, 27%
with a visual discapacity and 18% for motor disability. The study was
performed by AIJU.  

In other specific work of AIJU, the authors established different
recommendations, addressed to the toy manufacturers, for the design and
developing of toy vehicles accessible to children with motor disabilities.
All those recommendations are general rules for improving the safety and
comfort of the children when playing, such as wider belts, higher back rests,
bigger footrests, non-slip materials for the seats, push-buttons in different
positions, etc. However, the customization of parts of the vehicle for a
unique child was not considered, since this option would be difficult and
costly for the manufacturer. 

The vehicle seat adaptation to a child's body geometry is the best solution
for most of the cases, as there is an important variety of health problems
which lead to body deformation, paralysis or mobility handicap, that are
different for each patient. The experience of parents who have disabled
children confirm that the customization of the toy seat could be a vast
improvement for facilitating the use of the vehicle to the child, as the
results of a survey carried out by AIJU during the project and included in
the following section reflects. 

For this reason, the aim of this work was the customization of seats for
battery powered toy vehicles (like cars and quads) for children with motor
disability. 

The benefit of personalization by adapting child seats for vehicles must be
considered from two important aspects. The first one refers to the user's
security. Let us consider a child affected by any kind of incapacity (legs,
back) that prevents them from sitting in the same way a child without the
disability would. In a customized seat, the child would be more tightly held
within the vehicle and consequently would benefit from increased security.  

The second aspect, directly derived from increased safety/security, is the
greater feelings of comfort that will make the child want to play longer.
Finally, as the seat is personalized, the subsequent emotional involvement
will allow the child to enjoy playing with the vehicle more and more. Also,
it creates peace of mind for the children's tutors/parents 

From:
http://www.ptproductsonline.com/SOAPNotes/2009-01-07_03.asp

Links:
AIJU (Spanish)
http://www.aiju.info/

Successful Results in the Customisation of Toy Seats for Disabled Children
http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/44235/