Switch N Play: Creating Accessible Play Technology for Children with Disabilities
Team Members:
Chloe Chen
Kimi Hiji
Maymon Naing
Sabrina Sanchez
Inika Shakya
Mentors:
Dr. Alyssa Taylor
Abstract
Play is a significant and essential aspect of a child’s cognitive and physical development. Through play, children are able to develop skills such as problem solving, fine motor skills, sharing, collaboration, and basic social skills. However, children with disabilities related to fine or gross motor skills, such as cerebral palsy, are deprived of this basic necessity due to their inability to use off-the-shelf toys. To address this need, organizations have developed switch-adapted toys and started the field of toy adaptation – to adapt toys to be more accessible for children with disabilities and to engage the community through educational adaptation workshops. While the current method of toy adaptation is effective, the process is very invasive to the toy circuit, as it involves altering the circuitry of the toy. Moreover, adaptive switches and switch-adapted toys on the market are in limited supply and are very expensive, especially compared to the cost of the original non-adapted toys. Although there are toy lending libraries offering free adapted toys and switches for families in need, they have to heavily rely on donations to keep up with the need. These issues cause supposedly accessible technology to be, in reality, inaccessible to the families and children that need it most. Our team addressed these issues by designing a cost-effective and non-invasive method of toy adaptation. We are also currently working with the Toy and Software Lending Library of the United Cerebral Palsy of San Diego County (UCPSD) and student organizations at UC San Diego to increase the knowledge surrounding toy adaptation through toy adaptation workshops.
Abet Addendum
Chloe Chen
Maymon Naing
Inika Shakya
Kimi Hiji
Sabrina Sanchez
The Team