Familiarity Equals Interaction

So much of our early world is constructed through our toys. Toys expose us to the many wonders of life. We use toys to portray facets of our personalities and our lives—facets that we may not yet possess the vocabulary to convey. To borrow the name of a chain of toy stores, in the early part of our lives—toys are us.

Imagine a world where no toys resemble or confirm core elements of our identity. Imagine a world where parts of you are never reflected in the toys you have at hand. Would that world be a complete world? Would you be able to explore and discover that world with the reckless abandon that is every child’s right?

Now imagine the world of a child who uses hearing aids or cochlear implants. In parallel, imagine the aisles of the last toy store you may have been in. How many toys, especially dolls, do you remember seeing that a child wearing an amplification device could identify with…. Give up? Do not feel bad because there aren’t many such toys or dolls out there.

Genesis Politron, a teacher in California, who teaches pre-school and kindergarten saw this gap in the lives of her students who wear hearing aids or cochlear implants. Politron took it upon herself to fill this need and handcrafted dolls who wore cochlear implants and hearing aids.

Over a couple of versions she fine-tuned her design and has recently tweeted about the joy these dolls bring to her students. As you may expect, these dolls were a big hit with Politron’s students. In turn, Politron’s tweet, with a photos of her handcrafted and glittery hearing aid and cochlear implant, has been a great hit on the twitterverse.

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