Purpose

The toy industry creates and develops scores of new technology-related toys each year. Which of these toys are more appropriate for children with disabilities?

The staff at AWRC will testing technology-related toys for children with disabilities. We want to find out which toys may be useful in the home and in the classroom (in terms of safety, durability, of helping the child develop, age appropriateness, etc.)

• 10-15% of children served by AWRC have known disabilities (mental, learning, physical).
• Another high
• percentage of children served by AWRC have emotional and/or behavior problems (many of whom probably have undiagnosed learning and mental disabilities).
• AWRC is a referral resource for the Golden Gate Regional Center, especially for families living in the Chinatown-North Beach area and/or are Chinese speaking.
• AWRC is partnered with the Fu Yau Project (based at Chinatown Child Development Center), a program providing early childhood mental health consultation to community preschool programs and family daycare providers. Some of the children who attend these preschool programs and family daycares are children with disabilities.