COLUMBIA, S.C. - Staff from the School of Medicine Columbia’s Center for Disability Resources and students from Richland School District Two joined forces to embody the spirit of giving this holiday season at the annual Adapted Toy Workshop. The two-day event, held Nov. 13-14 at the Richland Two Student Innovation Center, sought to show families, professionals and school staff members how to adapt toys with switches for children with disabilities.

Organized by the South Carolina Assistive Technology Program, housed within the Center for Disability Resources, the workshop has run each fall for nearly a decade with the goal of providing cost-effective solutions for disabled children and the South Carolina community. Most toys are not accessible for many types of disabilities, but the workshop teaches a simple alteration using a button-activated switch that is installed into the toy that can allow for simple activation and enjoyment for kids of any age or ability.

In recent years, the campaign has seen a major boost from a collaboration with area high school students from the Richland Two Institute of Innovation (R2i2), a supplemental program providing classes and programming not available elsewhere in the district.

• 

  Learn More

  Explore the resources and services provided by the South Carolina Assistive Technology Program (SCATP).

• 

  R2i2 Information

  Find more information on the Richland Two Student Innovation Center.

• 

  Support a Great Cause

  Visit the Assistive Technology Program's toy wishlist!

“Incorporating a student-led, community service-learning project into what we were already doing was just the perfect marriage of events,” said Rachell Johnson, Program Manager for the South Carolina Assistive Technology Program. “Before, it was just our staff and community volunteers, and we had good turnouts, but doing it this way for the last three years, it’s more meaningful, because the students are learning something that can be a potential career path and it's really making an impact.

Not only are they learning about community service and how to help their fellow man, someone with a disability, but they're also learning awesome things they could do for a career. The soldering, the electrical work, the 3D printing and design, and they’re not just learning, they’re innovating. The button that they made for the switches, they improved upon the design that was already out there. It’s just amazing what they’re doing.”

Workshop attendees could bring their own toy to adapt or select a toy at the event and bring it to various student-guided stations to show how to incorporate a switch to ensure a single-action toy could be enjoyed by anyone, no matter their specific disability.

To borrow a phrase from the School of Medicine’s charter, the event is Promise in Practice for Nicolas Jones, a Computer-Aided Design (CAD)/Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) Instructor for R2i2. His students were able to take their lessons from the classroom into a meaningful real-world application.

“This is really what it's all about, because it's all just kind of theoretical until you get to the point where you're putting it into motion,” said Jones. “So just to see the students light up, to say, I did that. I served somebody else. I used the skills I've garnered and then translated that into something that helps other people. Every year I get surprised by the kids, seeing someone that really didn't want to do much in class, but put them into a chair in front of a volunteer and they light up, they can talk about the subject, and they can do the things I'm asking them to do. It's really a great way to actualize them and get them applying the things we're learning.”
Attendees at this year’s workshop ran the gamut from families to college students and school district staffs from all corners of the Palmetto State.

"We had a volunteer from Greenville, a rehab engineer, who wants to do the same thing there; we also have a doctor who works for School of Medicine Greenville and Prisma, she also wants to bring it back, so now we can pair those two together with some ideas of how they might do this in Greenville,” she added.

For Johnson and Jones, the workshop is a key piece of an equation they hope can continue to make assistive technology more affordable and accessible.

"Assistive technology is a really high cost still, so for a couple of dollars, we can manufacture a button, we can adapt a toy,” Jones said. “We're rejecting that notion that we have to make as much money as we can, sometimes it's just about serving people. Sometimes it's just relaying knowledge so people can translate it to their community.”

Johnson agreed, adding that she hopes the event continued to grow in the coming years and people keep taking the knowledge gained back to their communities.

“I would love it in South Carolina if a school would take this back and say, every year we're going to do this for our own students,” Johnson said. “I just hope that it's a program that we can always continue to do, because it really helps families.”