>>> Salkin Kathleen <[log in to unmask]> 03/01/02 07:33AM >>>
It's just dreaming, Chester.  These are games we'd like to see available,
you  know?  There are no games out there that feature disabled people as
super heroes.

Kat

Why is it just dreaming, Kat? If the demand and interest is out there, someone will make the product, no? 

I am thinking about the toy industry for example. There has been a tremendous change in availability of toys related to disability in the past few years. There is a very hot line of toys out right now called "Rescue Heroes" for the 3 to 8 year old crowd. The figures are are big, muscular, and athletic who are fire fighters, police officers, construction workers, etc. One of them is "Aidan Assist" (read "aid & assist" - they all have clever names - my favourites are the life guard, "Sandy Beach" and the police chopper pilot, "Hal E. Copter" <grin>). Anyway, "Aidan" is an EMT in a power wheelchair with gadgets to help extract folks from car wrecks. Very cool. I love this series - not a bad guy or an evil villain in the lot.  :-)

There is also a friend of Barbie's who is paraplegic. The school bus toys for toddlers are now all accessible buses with a wheelchair. Children's videos like Sesame Street regularly have children on with special needs (chairs, canes, Down's Syndrome, the deaf signing, etc.) but the disability is NOT the focus. There are lots more examples.

I don't think this is purely the result of heightened awareness by the toy moguls <heavy sarcasm>. There has to be a market and there are not enough special needs kids out there to create a big enough one. BUT, I think there has been a shift in how society is beginning to accept the disabled (And I do mean beginning - I realize there is a long way to go). If your able-bodied child has a child in his class in a wheelchair, then as a parent, you want him to accept that child. If your child has played with his FP school bus with the kid in a wheelchair, this is not a foreign concept to him. Many parents want to expose their kids to a variety of ethnic, racial, cultural, spiritual differences and that includes some exposure to disability issues. (And if you want to decrease discrimination and increase acceptance in society in general, this is where it has to start, IMHO.) So parents of NDA kids started demanding these kind of toys, too. 

So don't give up on the video game industry just yet. Maybe someone just needs to put a bug in their ear. :-)  Anthony is fast approaching that video game age...

Yvonne
Mom to Bobby & Anthony (CP), age 4