Woman Creates Dolls With Special Needs

A woman in Polson, Montana is releasing a new line of dolls featuring children with special needs. She focuses on what the kids have accomplished rather than their disabilities.  Cyndi Elliot is a pediatric occupational therapist and works closely with children that, as she calls it, have special abilities.  Creating the dolls works towards the goal of showing children with disabilities how capable they are.

Inspired by her brother David who is 4 years younger and the 10th child in the family, Elliot based her entire view about life from David’s optimistic outlook with general strength and happiness. David was born with down syndrome and a hole in his heart. While it was obvious that David’s body and cognition were slower, it took Elliot until she was in her 40′s to have the epiphany that would begin her journey and lead her to create these special dolls. She finally saw David’s heart condition as him being born “open hearted.” It was with this different viewpoint that she began to find a way to truly honor what David and the children she worked with on what they could do, instead of what they couldn’t.

Each doll features a short story of the accomplishments of the child they honor. At first glance, it is next to impossible to tell the doll represents a special needs child and is only revealed once you read the story and “know” the doll and their story. It is this moral lesson that Elliot intends to teach not only children but everyone to live wHOLEheartedly and see everyone as wHOLE.

“They are already wHOLE. They just need our help with some little bit – instead of looking at them as broken, and we need to fix them a lot to be like us. I think they already have a lot that they can teach us, Elliot said.

Elliot began making clay models of the children while writing a children’s book highlighting certain children in her life that had inspired her. Once the clay models came to life, Elliot saw her true calling was to market the dolls.

Some of the dolls highlighted are of David, her brother, who has Downs Syndrome and plays the saxophone. Bella, who has Multiple Sclerosis, travels internationally with her family, received a full academic scholarship, and plans to major in alternative energy sources. These dolls are designed to change the view general society has of defining a person by that disability; rather see them for their accomplishments.

View all of the dolls at http://www.wholeheartedkids.com

Sources:

http://www.kaj18.com/news/polson-woman-dolls-highlight-disabled-kids/